JUNGLE 

TALES 


HOWARD 

ANDERSON 

MUSSER 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


JUNGLE   TALES 


HOWARD  ANDERSON  MUSSER 


WHAT    KKPT    MK    FROM    FIRING: 


CAN  T    SAY 


"SAUIH!"  UK  CRIKD,  BKKATH- 
LESSLY,"  PERSECUTIONS  AGAIN! 
IN  THK  HASTAR  JfNGI.ES!" 


JUNGLE     TALES 

Adventures  in  India 

BY 

HOWARD  ANDERSON  ,MUSSER 


Illustrated  by 
THOMAS  FOGARTY 


NEW  XSJT  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1923, 
By  George  H.  Doran  Company 


Copyright,  1920,  1921, 
By  The  Sprague  Publishing  Company 

JUNGLE    TALES.       I 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

TF  you  were  a  boy  in  India — 
-*        You  would  often  feel  terrified.    Tigers, 
bears,  panthers,  leopards,  and  wild  boar  teem 
in  the  jungle,  and  the  Arms  Act  forbids  natives 
to  have  firearms. 

You  would  feel  hungry.  Millions  of  Hindus 
go  through  life  without  once  having  a  full  stom- 
ach. 

You  would  feel  hopeless.  Out  of  a  thousand 
Hindus  only  fifty  ever  learn  to  read.  Almost 
all  are  desperately  poor — average  income,  five 
cents  a  day.  As  there  is  no  democracy  in  India, 
if  you  were  born  low  down  in  the  social  scale 
you  must  remain  there.  A  rigid  caste  system, 
centuries  old  and  sanctioned  by  the  Hindu  re- 
ligion, forbids  you  to  rise. 

But  perhaps  you  would  not  feel  at  all,  as  it  is 
more  than  likely  that  by  this  time  you  would  be 
dead.  Because  of  cholera,  plague,  smallpox,  and 
famine,  to  say  nothing  of  unsanitary  homes  and 


641789 


vi  AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

the  ravages  of  wild  beasts,  fifteen  babies  out 
of  every  sixteen  die  before  they  reach  the  age 
of  two. 

No  wonder,  then,  that  Americans  gladly  go 
as  missionaries  to  India!  They  go  to  carry  to 
the  Hindis  a  new  religion.  True,  the  natives 
are  amazingly  religious  already.  For  his  relig- 
ion's sake  a  Hindu  will  tear  out  his  tongue  or 
pluck  out  his  eye  or  lie  for  forty  years  on  a  bed 
of  spikes.  But  his  is  the  religion  that  maintains 
the  caste  system,  reserving  education  and  pros- 
perity for  the  few  and  dooming  the  many  to 
utter  misery  and  degradation.  So  the  American 
missionary  in  India  is  fighting  Hinduism  with 
Christianity;  he  is  saving  the  Hindus  from  pov- 
erty, from  disease,  from  ignorance,  from  hope- 
lessness, from  the  crushing  tyranny  of  the  caste 
system. 

There  are  now  2,500,000  native  Christians  in 
India.  Their  numbers  increase  with  astounding 
rapidity.  Whole  villages  at  a  time,  the  natives 
are  renouncing  their  heathen  faith  and  their 
heathen  ways  and  hastening  the  day  when  India, 
now  a  land  of  crudest  oppression,  will  become  a 
land  of  liberty  and  happiness. 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

I     Ganl 13 

II  Tigers — But  Especially  Bears  ....  35 

III  Dahli  the  Manganese  Slave 57 

IV  Boys  of  the  India  Jungle 81 

V  Trapped  Among  Crocodiles  ....  101 

VI  BaUia  and  the  Bandit  ......  .  123 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

What  kept  me  from  firing?  ...  7  can't  say 
"Sahib!"  he  cried,  breathlessly,  "Persecutions  again! 

In  the  Bastar  jungles!"  FRONTISPIECE 


PAGE 


I  gained  on  him  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty  .      .        64 

I  took  out  a  box  of  matches  and  put  it  into  Dahli's 
hand.  "Perhaps  you  "will  have  to  set  fire  to  a 
house"  ............  64 

I  sprang  into  the  water,  and  plunged  headlong  toward 

the  stalled  cart        .........      112 

7  shouted  —  "Look  out,  man,  or  you're  a  goner!"  but 

he  paid  no  attention    ........      128 

The  wretch  sprang  at  Ballia   .......      128 


I:  Gam 


JUNGLE   TALES 


Gani 

T  1 1HERE  are  times  when  the  jungle  turns 
JL  all  tawny  and  dry  in  the  terrific  heat, 
and  then  may  come  fires.  The  jungle  aflame  is 
a  fearful  prospect,  more  dreaded  than  cholera 
or  famine  or  wild  beasts  or  all  other  deadly 
plagues  of  India  combined. 

It  was  during  such  a  time  that  I  received  a 
most  alarming  message,  late  one  day,  from  a  vil- 
lage miles  and  miles  off  in  the  depths  of  the 
Bastar  jungles.  Ever  since  dawn  we  had  swel- 
tered beneath  punkas  in  our  mission  bungalow, 
and  when,  rather  to  our  surprise,  we  found  our- 
selves still  alive  at  half -past  four  in  the  after- 
noon, I  screwed  my  courage  up  to  the  sticking 

place  and  ventured  out  on  the  veranda,  and  stood 
13 


14  JUNGLE  TALES 

there  a  moment,  gazing  across  the  lawn  where 
our  gardener  was  sprinkling  the  parched  grass 
in  vain  efforts  to  make  us  comfortable. 

I  felt  weak  and  ill  and  generally  worthless, 
and  if  you  had  told  me  I  was  about  to  launch  out 
upon  adventures  leading  up  to  the  thrill  of  a 
lifetime,  I  should  have  heard  you  through  list- 
lessly and — yawned. 

A  stone  wall,  breast  high,  seemed  to  quiver 
in  the  heat  next  the  road — or  at  any  rate  when 
you  looked  just  past  the  top  of  that  wall  every- 
thing was  in  motion,  dancing — and  it  sickened 
me,  and  I  was  about  to  step  back  indoors  when, 
to  my  astonishment,  I  beheld  a  native  runner 
dashing  headlong  up  the  road  and  hailing  me 
with  an  upraised  arm,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  hand — a  horror-stricken  hand,  with  fingers 
spread  wide  apart  and  hooked,  denoting  intense 
excitement. 

My  first  thought  was,  "Fires!"  My  next  was, 
"But  why  is  he  coming  to  me  about  that?"  And 
then — oddly  enough,  for  I  had  never  taken  much 
stock  in  such  rumors,  "Is  it  possible  that  the 
stories  about  a  wild  man  in  the  jungle  are  true, 
and  that  some  of  our  native  Christians  have  sent 


GANI  15 

word  to  me?''  Queer  ideas  will  pop  into  one's 
head  late  in  the  afternoon  of  a  desperately  hot 
day  in  India,  and  perhaps  the  heat  was  what 
accounted  for  this  one. 

Without  waiting  to  reach  my  gate,  the  runner 
gripped  the  top  of  the  wall  and  flung  himself 
over,  and  there  were  no  salaams  from  that  Hindu 
as  he  bounded  toward  me,  his  four-fifths  naked 
brown  body  all  glistening  with  sweat. 

"Sahib!"  he  cried,  breathlessly,  "persecutions 
again!  In  the  Bastar  jungles!  Houses  de- 
stroyed! Six  native  Christians  savagely  beaten 
up!  Four  of  them  dying  when  the  news  came! 
Threats  to  murder  every  native  Christian  there!" 

So  it  was  not  fires — yet.  It  had  nothing  to  do 
with  those  stories  of  a  wild  man  in  the  forest.  It 
was  worse.  I  grew  suddenly  cold,  then  hotter 
than  the  heat  of  sizzling  India,  for  you  can't  be- 
gin to  conceive  how  precious  our  native  Chris- 
tians are  to  a  missionary.  It  is  not  alone  because 
we  have  saved  them  from  the  barbarous  heath- 
enism that  bids  Hindus  toss  babies  to  sacred 
crocodiles,  and  worship  venomous  cobras  in  their 
houses,  and  collect  the  scales  from  smallpox 
victims  and  pass  them  around  until  every  one 


16  JUNGLE  TALES 

gets  the  disease,  to  the  glory  of  Devi,  the  small- 
pox goddess.  We  are  doing  more — freeing  them 
from  the  awful  tyranny  of  caste. 

For  our  converts  come  chiefly  from  among  the 
Pariahs — lowest  of  the  low  in  the  Hindu  so- 
cial order — outcasts — untouchables.  Not  long 
ago  the  little  son  of  a  high-caste  Hindu  tumbled 
into  a  well,  and  a  Pariah  who  happened  to  be 
passing  by  at  the  time  offered  to  risk  his  life 
in  an  attempt  to  get  the  little  boy  out.  But  no ! 
For  a  Pariah  to  save  the  boy  would  be  a  breach 
of  caste  and  would  forever  pollute  the  well;  so 
they  let  the  child  die. 

But,  once  a  Pariah  becomes  a  Christian,  he 
puts  himself  outside  the  caste  system.  He  can 
gain  an  education,  and  rise,  and  perhaps  win  a 
fairly  distinguished  position — not  a  few  of  our 
converts  have  done  so.  And  those  Christians  of 
ours  in  the  Bastar  jungles  had  a  particularly 
strong  hold  on  my  heart,  for  there  were  a  lot  of 
fine  young  lads  among  them,  and  in  India  I  spe- 
cialized on  boys. 

You  understand,  now,  why  I  felt  as  I  did 
when  that  dripping  native  runner  brought  the 
news.  I  said  to  him,  "I'm  going  there  at  once!" 


GANI  17 

He  replied,  "Sahib,  it  is  a  dangerous  time  to 
go." 

"I  know  it,"  said  I.    "There  may  be  fires." 

"And  the  persecutions  are  terrible,  Sahib. 
You  may  be  murdered,"  he  cried. 

I  laughed.  For,  despite  my  incurable  and  en- 
thusiastic Americanism,  I  was  a  chaplain  in  the 
British  Army,  with  the  rank  of  captain,  and  as 
such  could  lay  a  firm  hand  on  matters,  granted 
only  that  I  got  there  in  time. 

I  said  to  the  runner,  "If  you  will  serve  us  as 
guide,  we'll  be  off  as  soon  as  I  can  drum  up  a 
squad  of  our  native  men  and  get  the  bullock  carts 
loaded." 

With  a  deep  salaam,  he  agreed.  (Have  I 
explained  that  he  was  a  Christian?  He  was; 
but  one  grows  so  accustomed  to  meeting  Chris- 
tian natives  that  it  makes  no  great  impression 
and  one  easily  forgets  to  emphasize  it.) 

I  suppose  it  was  because  of  the  heat  and  my 
nervous,  worn-out  condition  that,  while  our 
preparations  were  under  way,  I  thought  again 
of  the  wild  man.  Only  for  a  moment,  however. 
"A  foolish  idea!"  I  said,  laughing  at  myself 


18  JUNGLE  TALES 

for  having  entertained  such  a  notion,  and  dis- 
missed it. 

Half  an  hour  later  we  set  forth  in  three  lum- 
bering bullock  carts  with  solid  wooden  wheels — 
one  cart  for  me,  one  for  my  men,  and  another 
for  our  supplies  in  tin  trunks — and  bumped 
along,  rattlety-bang,  over  roads  where  parched 
tiger  grass  seven  feet  high  scratched  drily 
against  our  caravan  and  roads  that  ducked  be- 
neath once  luscious  foliage  now  bleached  a  sere 
yellow  and  roads  that  led  us  among  rocks  that 
sizzled  in  the  heat;  and — what  was  that,  away 
off  yonder  a  little  before  nightfall?  What  in- 
deed? It  looked  like  a  whitish  cloud,  trailing 
close  to  the  horizon,  but  as  I  watched  I  thought 
I  could  see  movement  in  it — a  slow,  wriggling, 
ominous,  upward  swirl.  Smoke ! 

It  is  not  swift  going,  with  bullocks — we  often 
wish  we  could  use  horses,  but  the  deadly  climate 
of  India  forbids — and  when  night  closed  in  we 
were  not  much  nearer  the  cloud.  However,  we 
knew  its  nature,  now,  for  it  reddened.  "Sahib!" 
cried  an  excited  voice  from  the  cart  ahead  of 
mine.  "The  jungles  off  there  are  ablaze!"  Yet 
no  one  suggested  turning  back.  No  one  so  much 


GANI  19 

as  thought  of  it,  though  presently  we  began  to 
sniff  the  odor  of  burning  leaves,  and  one  of 
my  drivers  said,  "The  wild  man  had  better  keep 
out  of  there!" 

Ever  since  the  Mutiny,  British  rule  in  India 
has  feared  a  fresh  uprising,  and  that  is  why  the 
English  maintain  a  system  of  fine,  broad  mili- 
tary roads,  so  that  troops  can  be  concentrated, 
speedily,  where  most  needed,  and  before  very 
long  we  came  out  upon  one  of  these  roads.  I  was 
glad.  The  carts  bumped  less  cruelly,  and  there 
was  hope  of  a  night's  sleep,  and  if  we  ran  into 
the  thick  of  a  jungle  fire,  well,  at  least  we  should 
have  a  wide  highway  to  travel.  It  sounds  in- 
credible, but  I  slept  all  night;  and  when  morn- 
ing came,  and  our  worn-out  bullock  drivers 
handed  over  their  jobs  to  the  set  who  drove  by 
day,  the  whole  sky  above  us  was  yellowish  with 
smoke  and  the  sun  was  an  orange-colored  disc, 
and  we  could  see  flames  leaping  and  spurting  in 
the  parched  forests  to  left  and  right  of  the  road, 
while  the  heat  was  insufferable  and  showers  of 
soot  were  raining  down  everywhere. 

I  felt  exceedingly  anxious.  The  one  thing  I 
most  wanted  was  speed,  and  speed  seemed  the 


20  JUNGLE  TALES 

one  thing  least  possible  of  attainment.  The  fine 
road  was  to  our  advantage — in  ordinary  circum- 
stances, we  could  have  hurried  along  it  at  a  fairly 
gratifying  clip;  but,  because  of  the  heat  from 
burning  jungles,  plus  the  heat  from  a  pitiless 
sun,  I  foresaw  that  we  should  have  to  stop  at 
every  pool  to  let  the  bullocks  slake  their  thirst 
and  the  men  drench  their  dhotis,  and,  while  we 
were  making  headway  so  slowly,  what  would  be- 
come of  those  persecuted  native  Christians,  and 
what  would  become  of  us?  Our  supplies  would 
run  short. 

Precisely  this  happened.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing of  the  third  day,  as  I  lay  in  my  cart  with  a 
wet  towel  around  my  head  and  a  bit  of  canvas 
stretched  above  it  for  shelter  against  the  sun, 
one  of  my  men  reached  in  and  pulled  my  leg. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  he  had  pulled  my  leg, 
for  alas,  he  was  my  cook! 

I  sat  up,  and  said  in  Telugu,  "Well,  Anton, 
what  is  it?"  and  added,  jokingly,  "Have  you  seen 
the  wild  man?" 

A  Hindu  with  a  Portuguese  name  may  seem 
queer,  but  Anton's  father  and  mother  had  per- 
ished during  a  great  famine,  and  the  boy  was 


GANI  21 

taken  charge  of  by  a  missionary  who  had  lived 
among  the  Portuguese  in  South  East  India.  It 
was  there  that  he  got  his  name,  and  developed  a 
perfect  genius  for  acquiring  languages.  He  had 
learned  at  least  seven  native  tongues — Marathi, 
which  is  Aryan;  Hindi;  Hindustani,  which  is 
mixed;  Gujarathi;  Telugu;  Koi;  and  Bengali. 

When  I  asked  why  he  had  pulled  my  leg,  he 
said,  dolefully,  "Maja  poteawar  bhut  lagale 
ahetl" — "Hunger  has  come  and  sat  down  on 
my  stomach." 

"And  on  mine,  too,"  said  I,  "and  it  has  sat 
down  harder  than  any  wild  man  could.  But  be 
patient  and  we'll  see  if  we  can't  scare  up  some- 
thing to  eat,"  for  I  saw  a  stretch  of  forest  ahead 
where  the  flames  had  not  yet  swept  through,  and 
it  was  reasonable  to  assume  that  any  number  of 
wild  creatures  must  have  taken  refuge  there. 

When  we  came  to  the  still  unharmed  stretch 
of  woods,  I  halted  our  caravan  and  held  up  my 
hand  for  silence,  and  the  instant  our  clumsy  cart 
wheels  stopped  rattling,  we  heard  a  telltale  snap- 
ping of  twigs,  and  saw — or  thought  we  saw — 
vague  forms  slinking  about  furtively  in  the  jun- 
gle. 


22  JUNGLE  TALES 

I  took  down  my  rifle  from  its  sling  (it  was 
too  hot  to  hold  by  the  barrel,  so  I  gripped  the 
stock)  and,  as  I  was  descending  from  my  cart, 
Anton  called  out,  "Sahib,  I  will  go  into  the  for- 
est and  try  to  stalk  something — perhaps  a  herd 
of  wild  pig,"  and  in  he  plunged,  carrying  only 
a  light  ax,  for  natives  are  forbidden  to  use  fire- 
arms. 

Now,  if  there's  anything  in  the  world  nice  and 
juicy  and  toothsome,  it  is  a  little  roasted  wild 
pig.  You  split  him  open,  clean  him,  plaster  him 
inside  and  out  with  clay,  lay  him  beside  a  burn- 
ing log,  and  wait.  By  and  by  you  see  the  mud 
crack  open  and  down  you  sit  to  the  most  savory 
meal  in  Cookland. 

While  Anton  was  thrashing  around  in  the 
jungle,  I  ran  out  in  front  of  our  caravan  and 
stood  at  "ready,"  with  my  finger  on  the  trigger 
itching  for  a  shot.  The  long  road  gleamed  white 
and  hot  ahead.  Occasionally  I  caught  sight  of 
a  frolicsome  monkey  or  heard  a  wood  pigeon 
call  softly  to  its  mate.  I  was  not  nervous.  I 
knew  the  ways  of  the  jungle  of  old  and  had  no 
fear  of  missing  a  shot  at  whatever  game  Anton 
stirred  up.  A  wild  animal  will  rush  through 


GANI  23 

the  underbrush  to  the  edge  of  the  road  and  then 
stop  and  poke  its  head  out  to  make  sure  that  the 
coast  is  clear  before  crossing.  Then  is  the  mo- 
ment to  let  drive.  It  is  an  easy  shot ;  only,  you 
must  be  quick. 

Anton  had  gone  quite  a  distance  back  into 
the  forest,  and  I  began  to  get  a  little  anxious 
about  him,  for  those  woods  were  a  perfect  tangle 
of  drooping  boughs,  snarled  creepers,  and  dry, 
crisp  undergrowth,  so  that,  once  Anton  had  put 
a  few  yards  of  jungle  between  us,  he  was  entirely 
lost  to  view.  And  I  knew  by  the  continued  snap- 
ping of  twigs  that  he  was  not  alone  in  there. 
Suppose  a  tiger  should  spring  upon  him — or  a 
black  panther.  Or  suppose  a  bear  should  come 
swaggering  with  savage  paw  upraised,  to  tear 
his  face  right  off ;  it  is  a  way  bears  have  in  India. 

I  was  in  the  midst  of  these  worries  when, 
"Suur  ate  hai!"  he  cried — "The  wild  pig  are 
coming!" — and  at  any  rate  something  was.  It 
dashed  through  the  leaves  and  tangled  vines  and 
grass,  and,  without  a  pause  for  safety's  sake, 
hurled  itself  out  at  one  bound.  What  kept  me 
from  firing?  Perplexity?  Inquisitiveness?  A 
desire  to  discover  what  species  of  jungle  beast 


24  JUNGLE  TALES 

could  behave  like  that?  I  can't  say,  but  I  soon 
saw  that,  had  I  fired,  I  should  have  killed,  not 
a  little  wild  pig,  but  a  little  naked  wild  boy  about 
six  years  old — the  cause  of  all  those  rumors. 

I  dropped  ray  rifle.  For  a  moment  I  gazed  at 
him,  spellbound.  He  was  running  on  all  fours 
like  an  animal. 

He  halted  and  rose  up  from  his  running  pos- 
ture, and  looked  first  at  me  and  then  at  the  for- 
est, and,  while  the  shock  of  amazement  still 
numbed  me,  flung  himself  back  into  the  jungle. 

For  half  a  second  I  thought  I  must  have  been 
out  of  my  head  and  "seeing  things,"  but  there 
went  up  a  great  shout  from  my  men  in  the  wait- 
ing carts,  and  I  realized  that  they,  too,  had  seen 
it. 

But  now,  on  top  of  the  horrible  experience  of 
coming  so  near  killing  a  little  boy,  came  the 
misery  of  having  him  get  away.  I  had  a  boy  of 
my  own,  safe  and  sound  at  home,  and  knew  only 
too  well  what  it  would  mean  if,  like  this  poor, 
naked  waif,  he  were  running  wild  in  the  jungle, 
with  fires  eating  their  way  nearer  and  nearer 
every  moment. 

I  sprinted  for  the  place  where  he  had  sprung 


GANI  25 

back  into  the  forest,  saw  a  hole  in  the  dry  grass, 
and  plunged  in,  determined  to  keep  the  trail  and 
catch  up  with  him.  But  a  great  many  wild  beasts 
had  broken  their  way  through,  leaving  trails  in 
every  direction,  and  I  was  soon  at  a  loss  to  know 
which  was  his. 

Just  then  Anton  shouted,  "Sahib!  Come 
quickly!  It's  a  little  wild  boy!"  and  I  heard  a 
prolonged  dry  swish  of  parched  undergrowth, 
and  followed  the  sound,  and  reached  Anton  only 
to  find  that  he,  too,  had  lost  the  trail. 

I  was  about  to  raise  a  grand  hullaballoo  and 
get  the  men  from  the  caravan  to  join  us  in  the 
hunt  when,  from  among  the  rocks  not  far  ahead, 
came  a  queer  scratching,  scraping  sound,  and 
a  low  whimper.  We  made  for  those  rocks,  and 
saw,  sticking  out  from  between  two  of  them,  the 
bare  legs  of  a  little  brown  boy,  who  was  trying 
to  burrow  in  there  and  hide.  I  grabbed  hold  of 
those  legs,  and  pulled,  and  got  him  out. 

What  a  fight  he  made  of  it  then — spitting  like 
a  cat,  biting  a  piece  out  of  Anton's  leg  as  big  as 
a  half  dollar,  and  clawing  me  so  savagely  that 
I  bear  the  scars  to  this  day ! 

I  tore  long  strips  from  my  shirt  and  tied  his 


26  JUNGLE  TALES 

hands  behind  him  and  bound  his  ankles  together, 
and,  though  he  struggled  like  an  infant  lunatic, 
caught  him  up  in  my  arms  and  carried  him  to  the 
road,  where  a  fine  whoop  of  applause  went  up 
from  my  men  as  they  came  running  to  get  a  look 
at  him. 

He  was  not  a  beauty.  Far  from  it.  He  had 
cross-eyes  and  a  snarled  and  matted  mane  of 
greasy  black  hair,  and  the  worst  temper  you  can 
imagine.  But,  considered  purely  as  a  show,  he 
was  up  to  the  mark  and  more.  Wild?  Oh, 
splendidly,  amazingly  wild!  When  we  tried  to 
get  him  to  talk,  we  found  that  he  had  forgotten 
how.  Even  his  cry  was  wild — a  kind  of  yowl. 
And,  in  addition  to  his  other  charms,  he  was  a 
complete  mystery. 

I  put  him  in  my  cart  and  left  Anton  to  look 
after  him  while  I  went  and  picked  up  the  rifle 
with  which  I  had  come  so  near  killing  the  boy. 
I  was  in  no  mood  to  shoot  anything  now,  and 
we  no  longer  cared  how  energetically  hunger 
"sat  down  on  our  stomachs."  Our  one,  vivid  de- 
sire was  to  hurry  forward,  not  only  because  of 
those  persecuted  native  Christians,  but  on  ac- 
count of  the  little  boy  we  had  captured.  I  went 


GANI  27 

back  to  my  cart  and  clambered  in,  and  away  we 
started. 

Fortunately,  we  had  not  a  very  great  distance 
left  to  go.  Still  more  fortunately,  we  soon  passed 
the  fires  and  left  them  behind  us  altogether  and 
could  breathe  freely  again;  and  by  midday  we 
came  in  sight  of  the  village  from  which  the  ap- 
peal for  help  had  reached  me,  and,  sure  enough, 
there  were  gaps  along  its  edges  where  the  houses 
of  native  Christians  had  been  burned  by  their 
persecutors. 

"Sahib,"  cried  our  guide,  the  native  runner, 
"let  me  carry  the  news  of  our  coming,"  and, 
hardly  waiting  for  my  assent,  dashed  away  at 
top  speed  down  the  road,  and  presently  disap- 
peared among  the  nearer  huts ;  sooner  than  you 
would  have  imagined  possible  he  emerged,  lead- 
ing a  throng  of  overjoyed  Christians.  They 
swarmed  around  our  caravan  in  a  perfect  hubbub 
of  delight,  and  brought  us  food,  arid  simply 
tumbled  over  one  another  to  pay  us  homage.  But 
the  main  attraction,  I  must  confess,  was  the  little 
wild  boy  in  my  cart. 

Gossip  travels  fast  in  a  Hindu  village,  and  the 
next  I  knew,  the  entire  population  was  out  and 


28  JUNGLE  TALES 

crowding  around  us,  all  atingle  with  inquisitive- 
ness,  and  I  had  just  the  chance  I  wanted.  I 
stood  up  in  my  cart,  and,  after  explaining  how 
we  had  caught  the  wild  boy,  lit  into  them  good 
and  strong  about  persecutions.  The  native 
Christians  had  been  forbidden  to  draw  water 
from  the  village  well.  All  such  oppression  must 
stop.  Several  of  them  had  been  beaten  up.  The 
outrage  must  not  be  repeated.  Houses  had  been 
burned.  Nothing  of  the  kind  must  happen 
again.  Why?  Because  I,  who  said  so,  was  a 
captain  in  the  British  Army. 

It  is  years,  now,  since  I  walloped  those  natives, 
and  there  have  been  no  reports  of  persecutions  in 
all  that  while.  I  give  the  credit  mainly  to  the 
little  wild  boy,  to  whom  I  owed  the  opportunity 
of  dealing  with  the  villagers  in  a  body. 

When  I  had  finished  speaking,  a  wizened  old 
Hindu  came  up  to  me,  salaamed  reverentially, 
and  said,  "Sahib,  there  are  people  here  who  think 
they  know  who  that  little  wild  boy  is.  Three 
years  ago,  a  woman  who  lived  in  a  village  not  far 
from  ours  took  her  child  to  the  priest  and  said, 
'This  youngster  of  mine  is  cross-eyed.  Why  is 
that?'  And  the  priest  said,  'The  devil  is  in  him. 


GANI  29 

Put  the  child  out  into  the  jungle  and  let  him  die.' 

"For  a  long  time  she  refused  to  obey,  but  the 
people  of  her  village  taunted  her  with  being  a 
witch  and  keeping  a  witch  child,  and  began  per- 
secuting her.  No  one  would  enter  her  house,  or 
sell  her  anything,  or  even  speak  to  her;  so  at  last 
she  yielded  and  put  the  little  fellow  out,  and  he 
went  away  into  the  jungle. 

"He  was  three  years  old  then,  and  they  say 
his  name  was  Gani." 

"But  where  is  his  mother  now?" 

"Dead,  Sahib.  All  his  folks  are  dead.  The 
cholera  came,  Sahib,  and  wiped  out  the  entire 
village — even  the  dogs  and  cats." 

So  this  was  the  story — credible  enough  when 
you  come  to  think  of  it.  For  it  is  not  hard  for 
a  boy  to  get  along  in  the  jungle.  There  is 
plenty  to  eat — jungle  persimmons  and  mangoes, 
berries  like  a  long  plum  and  full  of  seeds,  and  a 
kind  of  tuber  that  resembles  a  boiled  sweet  po- 
tato and  grows  on  plants  that  look  like  May 
trees,  and  there  are  lots  of  other  things  besides. 
Of  course  some  man-eating  beast  may  come 
sneaking  up,  any  moment,  and  devour  the  boy, 
but  man-eating  beasts  are  few  as  nothing  short 


30  JUNGLE  TALES 

of  dire  starvation  itself  tempts  a  beast  to  feed  on 
human  flesh.  That  is  lucky  for  the  beast.  Once 
a  man-eater,  always  a  man-eater,  and  a  short 
lived  man-eater  into  the  bargain,  for  the  animal 
gets  mangy  and  his  teeth  fall  out,  and  some  other 
animal  soon  eats  him. 

We  took  Gani  to  our  Methodist  orphanage  at 
Sironcha,  eighty-five  miles  away,  and  it  was  a 
tough  time  we  had  of  it  trying  to  civilize  him. 
During  those  three  years  in  the  jungle  he  had 
not  only  forgotten  how  to  talk,  but  had  almost 
forgotten  how  to  walk — never  stood  erect,  but 
went  crouching — and  when  we  put  chothes  on 
him,  he  angrily  tore  them  all  off. 

We  quartered  him  in  a  storeroom  and  sawed 
a  hole  in  the  door,  and  through  the  hole  we 
splashed  water  on  him  for  a  bath,  and  tossed  in 
green  stuff  for  him  to  eat,  as  he  refused  cooked 
food,  and  one  day  I  reached  in  and  nabbed  him 
and,  much  to  his  indignation,  cut  his  hair. 

There  were  about  sixty  native  lads  in  our  or- 
phanage and  at  first  they  called  Gani  "the  little 
deaf  and  dumb  boy,"  but  we  soon  realized  that  he 
was  not  deaf.  Even  when  he  was  slouching  up 
and  down  the  storeroom  like  a  caged  animal  and 


GANI  31 

seemed  utterly  wild  and  brutish,  he  would  stop 
to  listen  if  he  heard  singing,  and,  as  the  head 
master  had  a  beautiful  singing  voice,  Gani  grew 
fond  of  him.  But  it  was  two  whole  years  before 
we  could  get  the  little  fellow  to  talk. 

One  day  Gani  found  out  that  he  himself  could 
sing.  That  was  the  turning  point.  He  began;to 
grow  gentle,  and  we  could  see  fine  possibilities  in 
him,  and  when  once  we  were  able  to  let  him  out 
of  his  storeroom  and  throw  him  in  with  the  other 
boys,  he  rapidly  got  to  be  like  them — so  much  so, 
in  fact,  that  you  would  never  have  guessed  from 
what  depths  of  hideous  savagery  he  had  come  up. 

Now,  when  you  have  snatched  a  boy  out  of  a 
plight  like  Gani's  and  civilized  him,  and  given 
him  an  education,  and  shown  him  what  Chris- 
tianity impels  people  to  do,  there  comes  a  time 
when  he  develops  a  fierce  hatred  for  the  mon- 
strous heathenism  all  around  and  wants  to  go 
out  and  fight  it  tooth  and  nail.  No  wonder!  A 
Hindu  priest  had  ordered  Gani  turned  loose  in 
the  jungle,  and  Hindu  priests  are  ordering  as 
outrageous  things  done  every  day.  "Down  with 
Hinduism!"  became  the  cry  of  Gani's  heart. 

Fourteen  years  have  gone  by  since  the  morning 


32  JUNGLE  TALES 

I  came  near  shooting  Gani  in  the  jungle.  He 
is  a  man,  now — and  a  power.  If  he  possessed  a 
talent  for  public  speaking,  I  believe  he  would  be 
hammering  at  the  foundations  of  Hinduism  with 
a  terrible  ferocity,  but  he  has  a  talent  ten  times 
as  persuasive — the  talent,  that  is,  for  singing. 
Into  the  native  language  we  missionaries  have 
put  the  story  of  our  faith,  and  set  it  to  music, 
and  in  villages  where  the  people  would  scorn  a 
preacher  they  can't  help  welcoming  a  singer.  So 
from  native  village  to  native  village  goes  Gani, 
and  in  the  evening  he  gathers  a  squatting  circle 
of  native  Christians  around  him,  and  outside  that 
circle  stands  a  great  multitude  of  heathen  folk, 
while  others  congregate  on  housetops,  and  there, 
beneath  the  velvety  deep  blue  Eastern  sky,  Gani 
sings  the  glowing  story  that  has  power  to  under- 
mine cruelty  and  oppression  and  ignorance  and 
misery  and  to  humanize  the  degraded  and  set 
them  free.  Among  the  living  forces  actuating 
the  landslide  toward  Christianity  in  India,  there 
is  none  more  effectual  than  Gani. 

My  blood  runs  cold  when  I  remember  that  I 
almost  shot  him. 


II:    Tigers — But  Especially  Bears 


II 

Tigers — But  Especially  Bears 

FOR  excitement  and  high  thrills,  I  know  of 
nothing  to  equal  a  missionary's  life  in  the 
jungles  of  India,  where  wild  beasts  roam,  at 
large,  and  you  hear  and  see  them,  and  they  hear 
and  see  you  and  there  are  encounters  that  fairly 
freeze  a  man's  blood — chance  meetings  with 
tigers,  for  instance,  and  especially  with  bears. 
Speaking  personally  and  for  myself  alone,  I  pre- 
fer tigers,  though  I  confess  that  I  hate  awfully 
to  fight  a  tiger  on  the  ground. 

Tigers  in  India  are  shot  mostly  from  trees. 
When  a  native  finds  a  "kill" — that  is,  the  body 
of  a  man  or  bullock  partly  eaten  and  left  for  a 
day  or  so  while  the  tiger  lies  by  in  a  lair,  the  na- 
tive runs  and  tells  the  local  authorities.  They  in 
their  turn  notify  the  nearest  Civil  Service  sahib, 
who  hurries  to  the  spot,  builds  a  nest  or  machan 
about  twenty  feet  above  the  ground  in  a  tree 

35 


36  JUNGLE  TALES 

close  to  the  kill,  clambers  up  into  it,  and  sits  there 
until  the  beast  comes  slouching  back  for  another 
meal.  Then,  from  his  position  of  entire  safety, 
he  pops  a  rifle  at  the  tiger — and  calls  it  sport ! 

If  no  kill  has  been  found,  but  a  tiger  is  re- 
ported lurking  about,  the  Civil  Service  ban  gets 
a  bullock,  drives  four  stakes  into  the  ground,  ties 
the  bullock's  legs  to  the  stakes,  ties  his  ears  shut 
to  make  him  bawl,  and  builds  a  machan  in  a  tree 
near-by  and  crawls  up  into  it  at  dusk.  If  you 
are  a  greenhorn  at  tiger  hunting  and  go  out  with 
a  Civil  Service  man  to  lure  the  big  brute  in  this 
style,  you  may  expect  the  shock  of  a  lifetime,  for 
when  the  tiger  hears  the  bullock  bawling  in  the 
night  he  comes  toward  it  with  great  leaps,  pur- 
ring and  growling  savagely,  all  his  lust  for  blood 
aroused,  and,  with  a  roar  that  shakes  the  forest, 
charges  the  bullock,  snarling  and  biting  and  try- 
ing to  rip  it  loose.  Greenhorns  have  been  known 
to  fall  out  of  the  machan  from  fright — yes,  act- 
ually. 

But  I  was  not  in  India  for  sport.  I  had  gone 
there  as  a  missionary  to  introduce  our  American 
idea  of  faith  and  straight  living  in  a  region  as 
big  as  Kansas,  Iowa  and  Nebraska  and  peopled 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEAKS     37 

with  5,000,000  acutely  miserable  Hindus,  many 
of  whom  got  their  first  glimpse  of  a  white  man 
when  I  looked  in  on  them.  However,  I  have 
twice  come  within  speaking  distance  of  tigers — 
on  foot !  For,  although  we  travel  by  bullock  cart, 
there  is  a  lot  of  walking  to  do,  as  somebody  must 
trudge  ahead  with  lantern  and  rifle  after  dark, 
and  I  think  I  must  have  walked  at  least  five 
thousand  miles  during  my  ten  years  in  the  jun- 
gle. 

But  now  and  then  we  strike  a  smooth  stretch 
of  road  and  one  feels  a  strong  temptation  to 
crawl  into  a  cart  for  a  nap.  One  night  I  yielded 
to  it,  and  let  a  guide  with  a  lantern  and  a  pair  of 
ferocious  cudgels  take  my  place  out  ahead.  It 
was  a  pitch  dark  night.  Trees  overhung  the 
road,  the  vine-fringed  branches  grazing  the  tops 
of  our  carts,  while  tiger  grass  seven  feet  high 
swished  against  the  hubs.  We  were  miles  from  a 
village. 

I  don't  know  how  long  I  slept,  but  I  know 
that  I  awoke  with  a  jerk  at  the  shout  of  fl Dekko, 
sahib,  ekmoto  weigh  nasdik  ahe — dus  foot  lam- 
ha!" — "Master,  a  big  tiger  ten  feet  long  is  near- 
by!"— from  Anton,  my  native  Christian  servant. 


38  JUNGLE  TALES 

Seizing  my  rifle,  I  sprang  out  and  followed 
Anton,  who  ran  on  ahead  with  a  lantern  and 
showed  me  a  great  hole  in  the  grass  down  low, 
and,  pointing  to  it  excitedly  said,  "He  went  in 
there,  sahib!"  We  were  walking  along  half 
asleep  when  we  came  on  him  lying  there  in  the 
road,  and  the  guide  said,  "Sir,  get  out  of  our 
way!"  but  the  beast  made  teeth  at  us.  We  threw 
stones  and  he  got  up  and  made  more  teeth  at 
us  and  went  in  there. 

I  took  a  lantern  from  our  guide's  trembling 
hand,  and  crawled  along  through  the  hole  in  the 
grass  for  about  fifty  feet  after  the  tiger,  but  si- 
lence was  everywhere,  and,  realizing  that  I  was 
doing  a  foolhardy  thing,  I  returned  to  my  cart, 
and  at  dawn  we  reached  our  camping  place,  and 
when  the  "dudh  walla,"  or  milkman,  came  past 
with  his  brass  pots,  I  asked  him  if  there  were  any 
wild  animals  about. 

"Sir,"  he  replied,  "last  evening  in  our  village 
a  few  miles  up  the  road,  there  was  a  happy  family 
in  their  hut  and  the  father  played  with  his  little 
son.  He  will  never  do  so  again.  He  went  out 
into  the  jungle  to  cut  wood,  and  a  great  tiger 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEARS    39 

seized  him,  and  we  followed  to  its  lair,  and  heard 
the  tiger  crunching  his  bones." 

So  this — clearly — was  the  beast  he  had  en- 
countered. Gorged  with  human  flesh,  he  had 
chosen  the  road  as  a  quiet  place  to  lie  down  and 
digest  his  first  meal  before  returning  for  the 
next. 

Oh,  well,  failing  to  catch  up  with  a  tiger  in 
India  is  no  great  calamity.  You  will  soon  meet 
another.  I  did. 

Not  long  afterward,  we  happened  to  be  travel- 
ing by  daylight  through  a  lonely,  dangerous 
region  four  days  away  from  a  railroad  and 
twenty  miles  from  the  nearest  village.  My  cart 
came  last  in  a  caravan  of  six,  heavily  loaded  with 
native  men,  women,  and  children  going  to  our 
Methodist  district  conference  at  Sironcha. 

Suddenly  from  far  ahead  there  went  up  a  wild 
shriek  of  alarm,  audible  above  the  rumbling  of 
the  cart  wheels,  though  I  could  not  make  out 
the  words.  The  carts  halted  abruptly.  Again 
I  heard  the  cry,  every  syllable  now  distinct: 
"Lowker  ikerdi  ye,  sahib!  Ek  weigh  hcu!" — 
"Come  quickly,  master!  Here  is  a  tiger!" 

I  was  the  only  man  armed,  so  upon  me  de- 


40  JUNGLE  TALES 

volved  the  duty  of  driving  the  creature  away.  It 
he  were  an  ordinary  tiger,  intent  only  on  secur- 
ing a  bullock,  he  would  not  be  very  hard  to 
frighten;  but  suppose  he  should  turn  out  to  be 
a  man-eater. 

I  got  down  my  jungle  "cannon,"  as  the  natives 
called  it — and  old,  twelve-bore,  double-barreled 
rifle  weighting  fourteen  pounds — and,  edging  my 
way  around  the  hubs  of  the  carts,  came  out  in 
front  of  the  foremost  one.  It  was  full  of  yelling 
men  and  women,  pale  from  terror,  and  the  bul- 
locks strained  at  their  yokes  trying  to  get  loose, 
while,  a  hundred  feet  away  in  the  middle  of  the 
road,  crouched  a  magnificent  tiger,  looking  won- 
derfully beautiful  and  fascinating. 

I  was  not  happy.  No  one  enjoys  coming  face 
to  face  with  a  tiger  in  the  open  road,  and  besides, 
there  was  the  awful  sense  of  responsibility.  If  I 
flinched  and  showed  the  white  feather  or  if  I  let 
excitement  spoil  my  aim,  I  should  see  the  work 
of  years  undone  in  an  instant.  All  my  hold  on 
those  native  Christians  would  vanish,  I  knew. 
But  I  also  knew  the  ways  of  tigers,  and  I  think 
you  will  agree  with  me  that  they  are  not  nice 
ways. 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEAKS    41 

Unless  he  is  a  man-eater,  the  habit  of  the  beast 
is  to  halt  a  string  of  carts,  crawl  up  slowly  on 
the  head  bullocks,  stalk  them  until  they  go  back 
into  their  yokes  with  fear,  and  then  suddenly 
leap  toward  them  with  a  mighty  bound.  When 
they  break  loose  and  rush  into  the  jungle,  the 
tiger  singles  out  the  one  he  wants,  and  is  after 
it  in  a  flash.  If  he  is  a  man-eater,  he  expects  the 
bullocks  to  overturn  the  cart  in  their  frenzy  and 
let  him  select  a  victim  from  among  the  sprawling 
travelers. 

The  great  striped  brute  off  yonder  was  crouch- 
ing for  his  spring  as  I  came  out  in  front  of  our 
caravan.  He  had  his  tail  up  in  the  air  and 
crooked  at  the  tip  like  a  railroad  signal  stopping 
a  train,  while  on  his  breast  gleamed  the  snowy- 
white  spot  no  marksman  can  miss  unless  he  has 
a  "funk"  on. 

I  dropped  on  one  knee,  aimed  straight  at  the 
beautiful  breast,  and,  not  without  a  sharp  pang 
of  remorse  as  the  tiger  caught  sight  of  me,  pulled 
both  triggers.  Down  he  lurched  into  the  dust 
with  a  roar  and  then  a  deep,  gurling  sound,  but 
with  the  tip  of  his  tail  still  aloft,  and  that  was  the 
end  of  the  tiger. 


42  JUNGLE  TALES 

Out  from  their  carts  piled  the  darkfaced 
crowd,  and  joined  hands,  and  danced  around 
him,  shouting  joyously,  "Are  baberi  dushman 
margyia!" — "Oh,  father,  our  enemy  is  dead!" 
They  treated  him  with  great  indignity  now — 
kicked  him,  twisted  his  tail,  and  pulled  out  his 
whiskers  for  souvenirs.  I  soon  had  him  skinned, 
and  as  we  started  away  at  top  speed  to  make  up 
for  lost  time,  I  thought  of  the  folks  back  home  in 
America  who  think  missionaries  to  the  Hindus 
must  lead  pretty  uneventful  lives.  Whereas,  we 
don't;  for  there  are  not  only  tigers  in  the  jungle, 
hut  bears  as  well,  and,  while  it  is  of  course  a  mere 
matter  of  taste,  I  would  rather  meet  a  tiger  any 
day  than  a  bear. 

When  they  stand  up  on  their  groggy  hind  legs 
the  savage,  big,  black  bears  of  India  are  as  tall 
as  a  big  brown  Hindu,  and,  while  they  would 
rather  maul  a  garden,  any  time,  than  eat  a  man, 
they  have  hairtrigger  tempers  and  a  mere  noth- 
ing will  infuriate  them,  and  then  their  instinct 
follows  a  set  rule  always.  Instead  of  grappling 
with  you  like  a  grizzly,  the  big  black  bear's  idea 
is  to  lift  a  huge  paw  with  long,  merciless  claws, 
and  hit  you  a  downward  swipe  that  tears  your 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEARS     43 

face  right  off.  The  natives  know  this,  and  have 
learned  how  to  duck. 

Suppose  a  bear  hears  a  woodchopper  in  the 
jungle  hacking  at  a  bamboo,  and,  on  swift,  pad- 
ded feet,  charges  for  the  spot.  If  he  is  warned 
in  time,  the  woodchopper  falls  flat  on  his  face, 
grips  the  jungle  grass  with  both  hands  and 
hangs  on  for  dear  life.  After  a  few  vain  attempts 
to  turn  him  over,  the  bear  rakes  him  down  the 
back  ferociously,  and  lets  it  go  at  that. 

Not  long  ago  I  set  out  to  visit  the  industrial 
village  we  were  maintaining  in  Central  India 
eighty  miles  from  my  mission  station,  and  the 
way  led  through  jungles  swarming  with  tigers, 
leopards,  wolves,  deer,  wildcats,  wild  dogs,  and 
deadly  serpents,  to  say  nothing  of  bears.  We 
arrived  late  in  the  evening  and  my  native  Chris- 
tian helpers  and  I  were  unloading  our  three  bul- 
lock carts  when  suddenly  I  heard  a  great  hullabal- 
loo  afar  .off  in  the  dusk,  and  there  came  sounds 
of  snapping  twigs  and  swishing  undergrowth, 
and  a  group  of  horror-stricken  native  men 
bounded  out  from  the  edge  of  a  deep  thicket,  and 
ran  headlong  toward  us,  and  one  of  them 
shouted,  between  gasps  for  breath,  "Bears, 


44  JUNGLE  TALES 

sahib — three  enormous  big  bears!  They  chased 
us!  And  there's  a  fourth.  We — saw  him!" 

Quite  a  lot  of  villagers  popped  out,  and  came 
hurrying  up  to  hear  the  story,  but  they  took  it 
with  very  remarkable  composure.  I  thought 
until,  presently,  I  learned  that  the  bears  had 
come  to  be  more  or  less  of  a  standing  institution. 
For  weeks,  the  four  big  brutes  had  been  snoop- 
ing about  the  fringes  of  the  village,  scaring 
women  and  children  and  occasionally  a  man  and 
keeping  timid  folks  indoors  after  sundown,  as 
natives  are  not  allowed  to  have  firearms. 

It  was  up  to  me,  clearly.  These  were  my  peo- 
ple, and  I,  being  the  only  man  possessed  of  fire- 
arms, must  protect  them.  Notice,  please,  I  say 
"must."  It  was  not  a  mere  case  of  "ought."  If 
I  showed  a  yellow  streak,  I  should  not  only  be 
leaving  these  folks  exposed  to  mortal  danger,  I 
should  bring  contempt  upon  our  vast  missionary 
campaign. 

"Tell  me,"  I  said  to  the  men  who  had  just 
come  running  up.  "Where  was  it  that  you  saw 
the  bears?" 

"In  there,  sahib.  Beyond  the  thicket.  Out  in 
a  great  open  field." 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEARS     45 

I  seized  my  rifle,  giving  an  extra  one  to  Anton, 
and  together  we  plunged  through  the  thicket.  It 
was  almost  dark  by  this  time,  and  yet,  as  we 
neared  the  farther  edge  of  the  thicket,  where 
trees  were  wide  apart  again  and  we  could  look 
out  across  the  field,  there,  sure  enough  were  the 
bears,  dimly  yet  only  too  awesomely  visible  about 
three  hundred  yards  away,  and  we  heard  them 
grunting  as  they  ripped  up  the  earth  in  search  of 
roots  and  white  ants!  Whoof !  Whoof !  Whoof ! 
—like  that. 

Now,  when  you  hunt  one  sort  of  game  in 
India,  you  must  not  be  too  much  astonished  if 
another  sort  hunts  you.  As  we  stole  ahead,  sil- 
ently as  we  knew  how,  toward  the  clearing,  in 
hope  of  getting  close  enough  to  risk  a  shot,  we 
passed  near  a  stout  palm  tree  with  branches  ten 
or  twelve  feet  long,  their  tips  touching  the 
ground,  and  in  one  side  of  its  huge  trunk  there 
was  a  large  hole. 

I  was  ahead  and  had  just  gone  past  the  hole 
when — whoop -la ! — out  thundered  a  great,  blood- 
thirsty wild  boar  as  high  as  a  table  and  as  thick 
as  a  sewing  machine.  Head  down,  he  came  like 
a  shot,  butted  Anton  in  the  knees,  knocked  him 


46  JUNGLE  TALES 

flat,  rushed  on,  whirled,  and,  with  savage  tusks 
out,  charged  straight  at  the  prostrate  body  to 
disembowel  it. 

Half  stunned  by  the  fall,  Anton  had  let  go  of 
his  rifle,  and  I  knew  I  must  fire,  though  I  real- 
ized, even  in  the  midst  of  my  excitement,  that  I 
might  kill  Anton  instead  of  the  boar. 

I  let  drive.  Hurrah !  Down  flopped  six  hun- 
dred pounds  of  wild  boar — almost  on  Anton. 
But  what  was  this  ?  To  my  horror,  I  heard  An- 
ton groan,  "I'm  dead!  I'm  dead!"  Had  the 
shot  gone  through  the  beast  and  hit  the  man? 

It  was  only  fright.  Wondrously  relieved,  I 
ran  and  helped  Anton  up;  whereupon  he  went 
down  on  his  knees  to  me,  and  hugged  my  legs, 
and  cried,  gratefully,  "I  will  never  leave  you, 
sahib,  no  matter  what  happens.  I  will  never 
leave  you  day  or  night."  I  little  guessed  how 
soon  he  was  to  prove  his  devotion,  though  I  knew 
from  of  old  that  native  Christians  in  India  keep 
their  word.  They  are  fidelity  itself.  We  have 
more  than  three  hundred  thousand  native  Chris- 
tians in  India  now,  and  after  ten  years'  experi- 
ence I  have  still  to  hear  of  a  backslider — and  this 
despite  persecution  that  is  sometimes  all  but  in- 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEARS    47 

credible  in  its  barbarity.  Really,  I  can  think  of 
nothing  more  amazing  than  their  splendid  loy- 
alty. 

Of  course  the  shot  that  laid  low  the  wild  boar 
frightened  away  the  bears,  but  we  tagged  along 
after  them,  and  came  to  a  river  bank,  and,  more 
by  good  luck  than  good  wit,  succeeded  in  find- 
ing the  cave  where  they  lived.  Forty  feet  above 
the  water,  it  had  an  opening  about  four  feet  high, 
and  it  ran  back  in  about  sixty  feet,  and  in  front 
of  it  there  was  a  shelf  of  sticky  clay  a  hundred 
feet  across.  The  bears  slunk  into  the  cave  and 
disappeared. 

Anton  and  I  hallooed  at  the  top  of  our  lungs, 
and  after  a  while  several  native  men  responded 
and  crawled  up  to  the  opening  of  the  cave,  and 
one  of  them  agreed  to  stay  and  watch,  and  all 
through  the  night  he  stuck  bravely  to  his  post. 

When  I  returned  next  morning,  he  said  to 
me,  "There  are  three  bears  and  a  hyena  in  this 
cave,  sahib."  Just  then  I  happened  to  glance 
up,  and  there,  at  the  crest  of  the  hill,  stood  a 
huge  bear,  motionless,  as  if  posing  for  his  pic- 
ture, looking  down  at  us.  But  before  I  could  get 
ready  to  fire,  he  bounded  away  at  top  speed. 


48  JUNGLE  TALES 

Though  we  scrambled  up  the  clayey  slope,  saw 
which  way  be  had  gone,  and  pursued  for  half  a 
mile,  he  escaped. 

Much  disgusted,  we  went  back  to  the  cave  and 
began  examining  its  surroundings,  and  found 
evidences  that  it  had  been  an  abode  of  tigers, 
leopards,  wildcats  and  bears  in  turn — no  two 
kinds  could  live  there  at  the  same  time.  Then, 
leaving  the  man  to  watch,  we  went  about  our 
business,  and  when  we  returned  in  the  evening 
he  still  insisted  that  there  were  three  bears  inside, 
but  was  not  so  sure  about  the  hyena. 

I  had  a  pretty  laborious  day  of  it  in  the  village 
and  was  unable  to  revisit  the  cave  until  dusk; 
then  Anton  and  I  went  and  perched  on  rocks, 
with  rifles  ready,  close  to  the  entrance,  waiting 
for  darkness  and  hunger  to  bring  out  the  bears. 
We  could  hear  the  croaking  of  muggers — the 
great  crocodiles  of  India — in  the  river.  As  night 
descended,  there  came  vague  sounds  of  beasts  of 
prey  roaming  at  large  in  the  jungle.  Over  the 
hilltop  rose  a  dullish  red  moon  that  turned  slowly 
to  orange  and  then  yellow,  and  poured  a  flood 
of  mellow  radiance  down  the  slope. 

The  tenants  of  that  cave  knew  we  were  there. 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEAKS    49 

We  knew  they  knew.  Beyond  question  they 
must  have  scented  us.  And,  while  it  was  per- 
haps foolish  to  suppose  that  bears'  minds  work 
like  men's  minds,  I  could  not  help  fancying  that 
the  beasts  inside  had  figured  out  a  plan  and  had 
rehearsed  it,  mentally,  a  hundred  times  over.  To 
test  the  truth  of  this,  one  would  have  to  be  a 
bear;  yet  the  event  seemed  to  show  that  I  was 
right,  for  now,  to  my  surprise,  forth  ambled  not 
one  whoofing  bear,  but  three! 

Because  I  was  surprised  at  such  incredibly 
good  luck,  I  hesitated,  and  stared  in  open- 
mouthed  wonder;  and,  quick  as  a  flash,  all  three 
of  them  turned  and  went  bounding  up  the  hill- 
side, a  great  she-bear  leading. 

I  fired.  Down  dropped  the  leader,  roaring 
horribly,  biting  everything  within  reach,  and  flop- 
ping over  and  over,  limp  and  helpless,  down  the 
bank  all  the  way  to  the  water's  edge — with  a 
bullet  through  her  head.  The  next  bear  got  a 
shot  in  the  neck  and  followed,  roaring  horribly, 
but  dead  in  a  few  seconds.  The  third,  a  full- 
grown  male  bear,  changed  his  plans  at  this,  and 
galloped  back  toward  the  cave.  With  my  rifle 
at  my  hip,  the  way  we  used  to  shoot  rabbits  in 


50  JUNGLE  TALES 

Ohio  when  I  was  a  boy,  I  bored  him  through, 
but  he  crawled  on  into  the  cave,  badly  wounded. 

It  would  not  do  to  leave  him  there;  he  might 
get  well,  in  course  of  time,  and  renew  his  depre- 
dations ;  so,  with  help  from  Anton  and  the  native 
who  had  kept  watch,  I  got  a  lot  of  brush  to  fill 
the  side  of  the  cave,  and  soon  we  had  it  blazing, 
and  I  shielded  my  eyes  with  my  hand  and  peered 
in.  Although  it  was  a  crooked  cave,  I  could  see 
far  enough  into  it  to  make  out  the  cowering 
form  of  the  beast  I  had  wounded.  I  was  in  the 
act  of  taking  aim  at  his  head  so  as  not  to  spoil 
his  coat,  when  there  was  suddenly  a  wild  com- 
motion, and,  maddened  by  the  smoke,  out 
bounced  a  monstrous  she-bear,  her  eyes  as  red  as 
blood.  When  she  passed  the  burning  brush,  her 
fur  caught  on  fire.  Up  she  went  on  hind  legs 
and  came  at  me  with  merciless  paw  lifted  high — 
to  tear  my  face  off. 

Transfixed  with  horror,  I  fell  back,  lost  my 
footing  in  the  slippery  clay,  and  started  to  slide 
down  the  bank,  rifle  in  hand,  with  that  flaming 
beast  towering  over  me.  My  rifle  pointed 
straight  up.  It  was  loaded.  My  finger  was  on 
the  trigger.  But  pull?  The  sensation  of  slip- 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEAKS    51 

ping — let  alone  fear — simply  paralyzed  my 
brain,  and  pull  I  could  not. 

Then  it  was  that  Anton,  who  "would  never 
leave  me  day  or  night,"  made  good  superbly. 
He  had  been  holding  the  now  empty  rifle  I  had 
used  before.  Tossing  it  away,  he  threw  himself 
on  the  ground  between  me  and  that  blazing  bear, 
caught  hold  of  me  to  prevent  my  slipping  fur- 
ther, and  cried  out,  "Shoot,  sahib!  Shoot!" 

I  was  not  conscious  of  any  act  of  will,  but, 
instantly,  I  felt  my  finger  pull,  and  heard  the 
shot,  and  felt  the  kick,  and  caught  a  mixed  odor 
of  gunpowder  and  burning  fur,  and  dared  to 
look  up  as  I  toppled  over,  scared  half  dead! 
With  throat  torn  open,  the  bear  leaped  sidewise 
and  went  bounding  up  the  hill  like  a  living  bon- 
fire gone  crazy. 

I  was  myself  again  in  a  twinkling,  and  dashed 
uphill  with  Anton  after  the  bear.  Just  then  the 
moon  ducked  behind  a  cloud.  It  made  the  living 
bonfire  brighter,  but  fur  burns  only  a  short  while 
and  by  the  time  we  reached  the  top  of  the  hill  no 
bear  was  to  be  seen. 

So  back  we  went  to  the  cave.  Though  the  fire 
within  its  entrance  still  blazed,  all  was  quiet  there 


52  JUNGLE  TALES 

now,  and  we  judged  that  the  wounded  bear  in- 
side must  have  died  of  his  wounds.  As  for  the 
hyena — my  congratulations  to  that  lucky  beast 
for  having  existed  only  in  the  imagination  of  the 
native  who  kept  watch!  When  we  let  the  fire  die 
down  and  explored  the  cave  with  torches,  all  we 
found  was  a  bear,  and  a  dead  bear  at  that.  We 
hung  him  on  a  tree  with  the  others  and  went 
home. 

Next  morning  we  returned  and  searched  the 
hilltop  and  there,  wrapped  in  a  singed  coat  no 
longer  furry,  lay  a  dead  bear.  We  were  glad  we 
had  not  got  too  near  her  when  she  was  dying; 
in  her  agony  she  had  chewed  bushes,  gnawed 
rocks,  torn  up  the  earth,  and  made  a  frightful 
struggle  as  her  lungs  gradually  filled  with  blood 
from  her  shattered  windpipe. 

We  skinned  the  four  bears,  stretched  the  skins 
on  the  ground,  covered  them  with  salt  and  ashes, 
and  let  them  dry,  while  the  natives  swarmed  in 
from  far  and  near  for  a  grand  feast  that  is  evi- 
dently not  forgotten,  as  I  received  a  letter  the 
other  day  from  the  "chaudhri,"  or  headman  of 
the  village :  "Dear  Sahib : — There  are  four  more 


TIGERS— ESPECIALLY    BEARS    53 

bears  in  the  cave  and  they  chase  our  families. 
Do  come  back  and  shoot  them!" 

Ever  since  that  message  reached  me,  my  trig- 
ger finger  has  been  itching. 


Ill:    Dahli  the  Manganese  Slave 


Ill 

Dahli  the  Manganese  Slave 

DAHLI,  a  ten -year -old  Hindu  boy, 
drudged  in  captivity  at  a  manganese  mine 
a  long  way  off  from  the  jungle  where  "Buffalo 
Bill,"  also  ten  years  old,  ran  wild  among  the 
stupid,  slatish-blue  buffaloes. 

Dahli  had  never  heard  of  Buffalo  Bill,  nor 
had  Buffalo  Bill  heard  of  Dahli;  yet  amazing 
things  happened,  as  you  shall  see,  and  it  was 
Dahli's  courage  that  turned  Buffalo  Bill's  young 
life  completely  upside  down.  Not  at  first,  how- 
ever. It  took  time.  And  at  the  stage  when  I 
got  into  the  row  I  was  as  unaware  of  Dahli's  ex- 
istence as  of  Buffalo  Bill's. 

In  those  days  I  lived  in  Nagpur,  the  cobra 
city,  and  one  afternoon  I  happened  to  be  pacing 
up  and  down  our  garden,  thinking  over  the  many 
problems  a  missionary  always  has  on  his  mind, 

when,  chancing  to  look  up,  I  saw  off  yonder  in 
57 


58  JUNGLE  TALES 

the  road  a  wretched  family  group — a  mother, 
two  little  girls,  a  babe  in  arms,  and  a  son  about 
eighteen  years  old — their  plaintive  brown  faces 
appearing  above  our  garden  wall  and  their  hands 
outstretched  in  agonized  supplication. 

"Beggars!"  I  thought  at  first.  But  in  India 
the  beggars  whine  a  droning  cry  of  "Pisa,  sahib ! 
Pisa,  sahib!"  and  these  natives  just  stood -there, 
silent,  with  woebegone  faces  and  with  arms 
stretched  out  toward  me,  entreating. 

"What  is  it  all  about?"  I  wondered.  "And 
where  is  the  father?"  I  soon  learned.  Running 
to  the  garden  wall  and  looking  over,  I  beheld  a 
miserable  native  crawling  on  hands  and  feet 
with  his  face  to  the  sky,  and  his  legs  were  swollen 
to  twice  their  natural  size. 

"Poisoning!"  cried  the  eighteen-year-old  boy. 
"Kali  putr!JJ 

Now,  "Kali  putr"  means  "blackstone,"  which 
means  manganese,  a  very  poisonous  ore,  and,  as 
the  nearest  manganese  mine  was  twenty-eight 
miles  away,  I  exclaimed,  "Is  it  possible  that  you 
have  walked  all  the  way  here?" 

Pointing  a  melancholy  finger  at  the  poor  fel- 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    59 

low  on  the  ground,  he  said,  "Walked  and 
crawled." 

I  had  no  suspicion  then  that  these  people  knew 
Dahli.  I  had  never  heard  of  Dahli,  myself.  But 
in  any  case,  it  was  no  time  for  questions  about 
anything.  I  called  my  wife  and  had  her  take 
the  woman  and  little  children  to  the  women's 
quarters,  and  ordered  my  cart  got  ready,  and  as 
soon  as  it  came,  gently  lifted  the  manganese 
victim  into  it  and  hurried  him  to  the  hospital, 
carrying  along  his  son.  There  I  arranged  to 
have  the  boy  boarded  while  his  father  was  being 
nursed  back  to  health,  and  it  was  from  the  boy 
that  I  got  the  story. 

"We  are  high  caste — Kumbhis,"  he  said,  "and 
we  lived  on  our  farms  near  Khandala"  (in  the 
neighborhood  where  Dahli  once  lived,  if  I  had 
known)  "and  the  crops  failed,  and  we  were  sud- 
denly very  poor,  and  then  came  Mehmet  Ali,  the 
Mohammedan,  and  he  besought  us  to  go  away 
with  him  and  work  in  his  manganese  mine,  and, 
foolishly,  two  hundred  families  of  us  went — a 
thousand  people  in  all. 

"Mehmet  Ali  promised  us  big  wages  and 
agreed  to  pay  our  fare  on  the  train  and  provide 


60  JUNGLE  TALES 

us  with  food  for  the  journey.  He  kept  his  word 
about  buying  our  tickets  and  furnishing  the 
food,  but  when  we  reached  the  mine  he  hustled 
us  inside  a  high  stockade  of  bamboo,  with  armed 
guards  at  all  the  gates.  We  were  trapped,  sahib. 
Prisoners!  Slaves!  There  he  worked  us  four- 
teen hours  a  day  and  fed  us  rotten  rice  and  made 
us  sleep  out  under  the  stars,  and  we  got  no  pay 
at  all,  as  he  said  we  owed  him  for  our  railway 
tickets  and  food. 

"Farmers  are  not  good  at  handling  poisonous 
ore.  Every  little  while,  someone  would  get  a 
bad  cut,  and  the  wound  would  fester,  and  a  hid- 
eous swelling  would  come.  That  is  what  hap- 
pened to  my  father.  There  was  no  physician  at 
the  mine,  sahib,  and  you  know  it  doesn't  pay  to 
keep  people  who  can't  work  any  more;  so  Meh- 
met  Ali  ordered  my  father  turned  loose  and  the 
rest  of  our  family  along  with  him.  Twenty-eight 
miles  we  went,  walking  and  crawling,  in  the  di- 
rection of  home,  and  when  we  came  near  Nagpur 
a  native  Christian  said,  'Go  to  the  Methodist  mis- 
sionary, and  he  will  help  you.' " 

Among  those  sweating  slaves  at  the  mine  was 
Dahli — the  finest,  pluckiest  brown  urchin  you 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    61 

can  fancy — and  if  I  had  known  it  I  suppose  I 
should  have  been  even  crazier  to  liberate  Meh- 
met's  dupes  than  I  was,  though  I  burned  with 
just  that  desire  already,  and  had  the  law  on  my 
side  as  I  well  realized.  Long  ago,  the  English 
took  the  stand  that  there  must  be  no  slavery, 
serfdom,  or  peonage  under  the  British  flag  any- 
where on  earth. 

But  before  going  to  the  mine  I  should  have  to 
drum  up  funds,  as  I  foresaw  that  Mehmet  would 
never  turn  his  minions  loose  without  compensa- 
tion. Accordingly  I  went  tearing  around  among 
my  jolly  English  friends  after  promises  of  money, 
for  in  those  days  all  our  missions  felt  poor.  But 
wherever  I  told  about  Mehmet  Ali  and  his 
slaves,  Englishmen  laughed  uproariously,  and 
said  I  must  be  crazy  with  the  heat,  and  denied 
that  any  such  scandalous  abuses  could  exist  in 
India. 

"I  like  your  spirit,"  I  replied,  "but  now  look 
here,  gentlemen,  I'm  going  anyhow — slaves  or 
no  slaves — and  if  I  find  the  story  is  true  and 
spend  money  getting  those  folks  out,  are  you 
prepared  to  be  good  sports  and  foot  the  bill?" 

They  laughed  again,  and  said  they  most  as- 


62  JUNGLE  TALES 

suredly  were,  and  I  took  their  word  for  it,  and 
began  my  preparations  for  the  start. 

They  were  a  trifle  elaborate,  for  I  said  to  my- 
self, "If  I  go  as  a  mere  civilian,  Mehmet  Ali 
won't  be  much  impressed ;  I  must  take  along  my 
uniform.  Surely,  he'll  respect  that."  For,  al- 
though an  American,  I  was  a  chaplain  in  the 
British  Army,  and  I  assumed  that  Mehmet 
would  know  that  my  chaplain's  rig  denoted  the 
rank  of  captain.  Moreover,  I  thought  best  to 
take  a  tent,  and  to  camp  within  sight  of  Meh- 
met Ali's  house  and  let  it  appear  that  I  had  come 
with  the  intention  of  staying  there  until  he  saw 
fit  to  do  as  I  ordered.  And,  by  the  way,  "put- 
ting on  dog,"  as  the  English  say,  I  resolved  to 
take  with  me  a  servant. 

So  I  called  Anton,  the  splendid,  stalwart,  fear- 
less young  Hindu  who  had  been  brought  up  by 
one  of  our  missionaries  in  Southeast  India 
where  there  are  many  Portuguese  (hence  the 
Portuguese  names  he  bore)  and  who  was  now 
my  devoted  servant  and  Man  Friday,  and,  when- 
ever I  went  out  adventuring  in  the  jungle,  my 
cook. 

"Anton,"  said  I,  "how  would  you  like  to  help 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    63 

liberate  a  thousand  slaves?  There  are  armed 
guards  in  the  way,  and  the  Mohammedan  slave 
driver  is  by  all  accounts  a  pretty  hot  proposition. 
Understand  me;  I'm  not  asking  you  to  go,  but 
if " 

"Sahib!"  he  interrupted  eagerly,  "you  know 
I'll  go,"  and  that  night  we  started. 

We  always  prefer  to  travel  at  night  in  India 
when  a  trip  has  to  be  made  by  bullock  cart.  It 
is  far  easier  on  the  bullocks — and  on  us.  We 
escape  the  terrible  daytime  heat,  and,  once  we 
get  used  to  it,  we  can  sleep  fairly  soundly  in 
our  carts. 

I  wonder  what  Dahli  thought,  next  day,  when 
we  arrived  and  pitched  our  tent  in  a  grove  of 
magnificent  palm  trees  on  a  knoll  overlooking 
the  mine.  From  somewhere  inside  the  great 
stockade  of  bamboo  he  must  have  seen  us.  But 
I  remember  only  too  well  what  I  myself  thought. 
As  I  looked  down  from  the  knoll  and  watched 
the  thousand  busy  laborers  getting  out  man- 
ganese, with  guards  armed  to  the  teeth  pacing  to 
and  fro  before  the  gates,  I  growled,  "Now,  isn't 
this  a  situation?  One  Yankee — one — count  him 
— trying  to  upset  all  that!" 


64  JUNGLE  TALES 

At  another  time  and  in  another  mood,  I  might 
have  found  the  scene  very  interesting,  for  man- 
ganese is  one  of  India's  greatest  resources,  and 
the  Steel  Corporation  must  have  manganese  or 
quit  making  armor  plate  for  the  world's  navies, 
and  I  remember  a  queer,  close-mouthed  young 
Englishman  who  had  turned  up  near  Ramtek 
several  years  before  and  begun  wandering  over 
the  hills  and  breaking  stones  with  a  little  ham- 
mer, as  he  was  a  geologist  and  analytical  chemist. 

Climbing  a  barren  hill  one  day,  he  sat  down  at 
the  top,  broke  off  a  piece  of  jutting  rock,  felt  its 
weight,  hammered  it  into  tiny  bits,  gazed  at  the 
bits  long  and  earnestly,  and,  springing  up  in  a 
fever  of  wild  excitement,  fairly  flung  himself 
down  that  hill  and  vanished  without  breathing  a 
word  to  anyone.  Next  day  he  was  at  the  gov- 
ernment office  taking  out  prospecting,  mining 
and  land  licenses,  for  he  had  discovered  the  solid 
mountain  of  manganese  that  has  since  made  his 
fortune  and  not  only  his  but  those  of  his  friends. 
Talk  about  your  Wall  Street  brokers !  See  what 
India  can  do. 

But  I  was  not  concerned  about  manganese 
just  now.  I  was  looking  over  the  ground  with 


I   GAINED   ON   HIM   ONLY   WITH   THE   GREATEST   DIFFICULTY. 


I  TOOK  OUT  A  BOX  OF 
MATCHES  AND  PUT  IT 
INTO  DAHLl'S  HAND. 

"PERHAPS  YOU  WILL  HAVE 
TO  SET  FIRE  TO  A  HOUSE' '  - 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    65 

a  view  to  action.  I  could  see  a  rather  pretentious 
house,  as  houses  go  in  India,  and  took  it  to  be 
Mehmet's,  as  it  stood  close  to  the  principal  gate 
in  the  stockade;  and  off  to  the  right  I  saw  a 
native  village — council  trees,  temple,  and  rows 
of  native  huts — and  heard  the  yapping  of  half- 
starved  village  dogs.  One  likes  to  have  a  village 
near  at  hand.  It  is  a  source  of  supplies  and  may 
turn  out  to  be  a  mighty  convenient  haven  of 
refuge. 

As  soon  as  we  had  got  things  into  good  work- 
ing order  in  our  camp,  I  put  on  my  khaki  uni- 
form and,  taking  Anton  with  me — for  style 
rather  than  for  utility — went  and  paid  my  re- 
spects to  Mehmet  Ali. 

In  his  oily,  hypocritical  way  the  old  Moham- 
medan was  a  model  of  cordiality — at  first.  But, 
the  instant  I  approached  the  subject  of  labor 
conditions  at  the  mine,  all  his  polished  manners 
deserted  him.  While  he  refrained  from  calling 
me  "a  dog  of  a  Christian,"  his  wicked  little  eyes 
said  that  and  more,  and  he  snarled  contemptu- 
ously out  of  his  great  beard,  "Who  are  you,  to 
come  nosing  into  other  people's  affairs  like  this? 


66  JUNGLE  TALES 

Out  with  you!  Go!  I  know  that  uniform — it's 
only  a  chaplain's." 

But  here  Anton  showed  there  was  utility  in 
him,  as  well  as  style.  "Khdbardar!"  he  cried. 
"You'd  better  look  out!"  adding,  "It's  a  chap- 
lain's uniform,  yes,  but  the  man  who  wears  it  is 
a  Captain  Sahib,  in  the  British  army." 

"Ten  thousand  pardons,  sahib!"  exclaimed 
Mehmet.  Then,  salaaming  reverentially,  "I  am 
at  your  service!" 

"In  that  case,"  said  I,  "you  will  turn  loose 
your  slaves." 

"Slaves,  sahib?  Slaves?  There  are  no  slaves 
here.  What  do  you  mean,  sahib  ?" 

I  told  him  that  every  man,  woman  and  child 
at  work  in  that  mine  must  go  free. 

"But — but,"  he  protested,  clutching  nervously 
at  his  robes,  "they  are  in  debt  to  me  up  to  their 
ears.  They  owe  three  thousand  rupees,  sahib. 
Three  thousand  rupees  for  railway  tickets  and 
food!" 

"Prove  it!    Get  out  your  books!"  said  I. 

Though  boiling  with  secret  indignation,  he 
hobbled  away  and  got  his  big  ledger,  and  we 
looked  into  it,  and,  while  we  found  nothing  to 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    67 

substantiate  his  story,  found  nothing  that  con- 
tradicted it  out  and  out.  "Mehmet  Ali,"  I  said 
at  length,  "your  bookkeeping  is  enough  to  make 
one's  head  swim.  Suppose  I  go  to  the  govern- 
ment office  and  hunt  up  your  income  tax  report 
and  see  what  statement  you  made  of  sums  owing 
you." 

At  that,  he  wilted.  "Come,  now!"  I  de- 
manded. "Deducting  their  pay  for  the  time  they 
have  been  here,  how  much  do  these  people  really 
owe  you?" 

He  answered,  "Five  hundred  rupees,  sahib" — 
in  American  money  about  a  hundred  and  sev- 
enty-five dollars. 

Whipping  out  my  check  book,  I  wrote  a  check 
for  the  amount,  threw  it  on  the  ground  at  Meh- 
met's  feet,  and  cried,  "There  you  are!  Take  it! 
And  I've  more  to  say.  All  these  slaves  of  yours 
must  be  turned  loose  by  five  o'clock  this  after- 
noon, or  you'll  suffer  for  it!" 

Having  gone  my  full  length  of  good  American 
bluff,  I  turned  on  my  heel  and  left  him,  and  back 
we  went  to  our  camp,  where  I  paced  up  and  down 
in  front  of  my  tent  for  quite  a  while  thinking 
hard.  Then  I  stepped  inside  and  loaded  my  shot- 


68  JUNGLE  TALES 

gun,  and  presently  I  heard  Anton  call,  "Sahib! 
come  quickly!" 

I  sprang  to  the  door  of  the  tent  and  saw  An- 
ton pointing  a  brown  finger  toward  a  gate  in 
the  stockade.  "Look!"  he  said.  "A  small  boy 
has  just  come  out." 

This  was  my  first  glimpse  of  Dahli.  "Fine!" 
I  said.  "We  can  makes  use  of  that  boy!  Let's 
coax  him  up  here."  As  the  road  from  the  gate 
led  past  our  camp,  this  looked  easy,  and  when 
the  boy  came  near,  I  called  and  he  gingerly  ap- 
proached. 

"Where  are  you  going,  lad?"  I  asked. 

"To  the  village — on  an  errand  for  one  of  the 
guards." 

I  laid  a  hand  on  each  of  his  bony  young  shoul- 
ders, and  said,  "Pay  close  attention,  for  what  I 
am  going  to  tell  you  is  very  important.  I  am  a 
chaplain  in  the  British  army,  and  that  means  that 
I  am  a  captain." 

"Yes,  sahib." 

"And  I  have  paid  every  rupee  you  folks  owe 
Mehmet  and  ordered  you  all  set  free  by  five 
o'clock  this  afternoon.  But  the  whole  thing  may 
still  depend  on  you,  my  boy.  You  look  like  a 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    69 

fine,  brave  youngster,  and  I  believe  you  are. 
Will  you  risk  your  life  to  give  those  poor  slaves 
freedom?" 

"Yes,  sahib.    What  must  I  do?" 

I  took  out  a  box  of  matches  and  put  it  into 
Dahli's  hand.  "Perhaps  nothing,  but  perhaps 
you  will  have  to  set  fire  to  a  house.  If  Mehmet 
fails  to  turn  you  all  loose  at  five  o'clock,  wait  an 
hour,  and  then  if  he  hasn't  done  it,  set  fire  to  a 
house  at  the  far  end  of  the  enclosure.  All  the 
guards  will  rush  out  to  the  fire.  That's  your 
chance  to  make  a  break  for  liberty,  the  entire 
thousand  of  you." 

"Yes,  sahib." 

"But  there'll  be  a  lot  to  do  between  now  and 
six  o'clock.  You  must  whisper  the  news  around 
among  the  people  and  make  sure  they  all  under- 
stand. Tell  them  to  come  to  me  and  that  I  will 
protect  them  and  be  their  friend  forever." 

"Yes,  sahib" — and  away  he  trotted  on  his  er- 
rand. Pretty  soon  we  saw  him  returning  from 
the  village,  and  he  waved  his  hand  at  me  as  he 
passed  near  our  camp  and  I  felt  sure  that  Dahli 
would  make  good. 

I  believe  I  took  down  my  shotgun  and  ex- 


70  JUNGLE  TALES 

amined  it  at  least  forty-seven  times  that  after- 
noon as  I  waited,  waited,  for  five  o'clock  to 
come.  It  seemed  as  if  five  o'clock  never  would 
come.  And  all  the  while  we  could  see  the  swarms 
of  Hindu  men,  women,  and  children  toiling 
wretchedly  at  the  mine,  but,  as  all  brown  young- 
sters look  alike  that  far  off,  we  could  not  dis- 
tinguish Dahli.  How  was  he  acquitting  himself? 
we  wondered.  Had  he  spread  the  news?  If  he 
had,  were  the  people  ready  to  trust  me  ?  If  they 
were,  and  had  the  grit  to  defy  Ali  if  he  failed  to 
release  them  at  the  appointed  hour,  would  their 
dash  for  liberty  succeed?  But  the  great  point, 
after  all,  was  the  question  of  Dahli's  courage. 
Suppose  that,  at  the  last  moment,  Dahli  should 
lose  heart  and  be  afraid  to  set  fire  to  the  house. 

One — two — three — four — five!  tolled  the  vil- 
lage bell. 

We  strained  our  eyes  watching — and  our  ears 
listening — for  some  evidence  that  Mehmet  Ali 
intended  to  obey  me.  There  was  no  such  evi- 
dence. Not  a  change  anywhere.  No  stopping 
of  work.  No  orders  given  to  stop.  No  unusual 
movement — or  lack  of  movement.  At  the  gates, 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    71 

armed  guards  pacing  steadily  to  and  fro  just 
as  before. 

During  the  next  hour  I  raged  up  and  down  in 
front  of  my  tent,  fuming  and  storming  and 
sorely  tempted  to  take  my  loaded  shotgun  and 
go  straight  to  Mehmet  and — well,  nudge  him. 

At  last — oh,  at  last! — the  village  bell  rang 
out.  We  counted  strokes.  One!  Two!  Three! 
Four !  Five !  Six!  And  now — hurrah  for  Dahli ! — 
we  heard  a  boy's  shrill  voice  cry,  "Aggl  Aggl 
'Agg!"—"Fire\  Fire!  Fire!"— and  a  curl  of 
whitish  smoke  oozed  out  from  the  door  of  a  house 
at  the  far  end  of  the  enclosure,  and  up  its  grass 
roof  streaked  flames,  and  instantly  the  whole 
place  was  in  commotion  as  the  guards  rushed 
headlong  to  put  out  the  fire. 

Then  I  saw  what  Moses  saw — an  exodus !  Out 
through  the  gates  poured  a  thousand  woebe- 
gone people.  In  a  cloud  of  yellow  dust  they 
came,  with  children  and  goats  and  dogs  and  bed- 
ding and  all  they  possessed.  They  swarmed 
around  me  rejoicing.  Loaded  shotgun  in  hand, 
I  waited  for  the  old  Mohammedan  and  his  gang 
to  come  out,  but,  even  after  they  had  extin- 


72  JUNGLE  TALES 

guished  the  blaze,  they  failed  to  show  up,  and 
a  few  days  later  my  check  was  cashed. 

In  my  bullock  cart  that  night  I  headed  a  weird 
procession  as  we  started  away — the  whole  mob  of 
us — for  Nagpur  city.  And  of  course  you  know 
what  I  was  planning.  Thanks  to  Dahli,  I  had 
been  able  to  free  these  poor  wretches  from  Meh- 
met  Ali.  It  remained  to  free  them  from  heathen- 
ism and  make  them  over  into  good  Christians. 
This  was  not  difficult,  and  among  our  converts 
was  the  boy  who  had  set  fire  to  the  house.  Be- 
cause of  the  way  he  had  stood  by  me  when  I 
played  the  part  of  Moses,  I  renamed  him  Aaron. 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  Buffalo  Bill? 
Everything.  Wild  and  free  and  savage  he  was 
— then.  Wild  and  free  and  savage  he  would 
have  continued,  no  doubt,  had  not  Dahli  made  me 
responsible  for  a  thousand  rescued  slaves.  I 
had  to  provide  for  them  somehow,  and  the  place 
I  chose  for  their  abode  was  a  tract  of  land  near 
the  jungle  where  Bill  consorted  with  the  stupid, 
slatish-blue  buffaloes. 

It  had  once  been  the  site  of  a  village,  and  ten 
thousand  high-caste  Hindus  had  lived  there,  but 
the  cholera  came  and  every  living  creature  per- 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    73 

ished,  even  the  dogs  and  cats,  and  then  began  the 
inevitable  process — going  back  to  jungle.  De- 
cay set  in.  Big  trees  grew  up  through  walls 
and  crumbling  temples.  The  village  was  in 
ruins — houses  wrecked,  walls  caved  in,  and  the 
whole  place  a  tangle  of  wild  undergrowth.  Then 
along  came  the  land  department  people,  who  cut 
down  the  trees  for  lumber  and  made  ready  to 
sell  off  the  land.  We  bought  enough  of  it  for 
our  thousand  liberated  slaves  and  settled  them 
there  on  farms,  and  they  agreed  to  give  us  a 
quarter  of  their  produce  annually  for  four  years, 
after  which  the  land  would  be  theirs. 

I  was  down  there  one  fall,  gathering  in  the 
mission's  share  of  the  produce — cotton  and 
wheat  by  the  carload  and  a  herd  of  goats  and 
calves,  and  great  quantities  of  clarified  butter 
(ghee,  they  call  it) — and  we  were  about  ready 
to  start  home  when  I  chanced  to  look  across  the 
fields,  and,  away  off  toward  the  jungle,  saw  a 
herd  of  tame  buffaloes.  Sitting  on  the  back  of 
one  of  the  huge,  smooth,  gray-blue  beasts,  and 
swinging  a  club,  was  a  naked  Hindu  boy  about 
ten  years  old. 

I  said  to  the  natives  around  me,  "Dekho  Kon- 


74  JUNGLE  TALES 

ache  por  tathe  ahe?" — "Whose  boy  is  that  over 
there?" 

In  a  remarkably  unconcerned  sort  of  way  they 
answered,  "Nobody  knows." 

"But  hasn't  he  any  folks?" 

"All  dead,  sir.  He  belongs  to  nobody,  and 
lives  out  there  with  the  buffaloes." 

I  said,  "I  want  that  boy.  He  must  go  to 
school." 

They  grinned  and  nudged  one  another  in  the 
ribs  as  they  replied,  "Sahib,  you  will  have  to 
catch  him  first." 

This  reminded  me  of  a  recipe  in  my  old  Scotch 
grandmother's  cookbook — "To  make  hare  pot- 
pie  :  First  get  a  hare" — but  I  made  up  my  mind 
right  then  that  that  lad's  career  as  a  wild  boy  in 
the  jungle  was  to  come  to  an  end  mighty  soon. 
How  my  heart  went  out  to  him!  I  had  a  boy  of 
my  own  safe  at  home,  and  realized  what  it  would 
mean  if  he  were  living  with  only  beasts  for  com- 
rades. 

I  had  been  a  star  sprinter  in  college,  and  here 
was  a  chance  to  see  how  much  speed  I  had  in  me. 
I  gave  my  khaki  hunting  coat  to  my  cook  to 
hold,  kicked  off  my  hunting  boots,  threw  down 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    75 

my  pith  helmet,  and  started  for  the  boy.  He 
soon  caught  sight  of  something  yellow  and  lively 
bounding  toward  him,  and,  after  a  long,  keen, 
searching  look,  slid  down  from  the  buffalo's  back, 
looked  again  to  make  sure  that  I  was  headed  his 
way,  saw  that  I  was,  and  cut  for  the  woods, 
striking  the  ground  every  eight  feet  and  glanc- 
ing over  his  shoulder  much  too  often,  as  he  lost 
speed  by  it. 

But  he  led  me  a  corking  chase  despite  that. 
He  was  all  bones  and  no  clothes ;  I  was  all  bones, 
but  I  gained  on  him  only  with  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty. When  he  saw  I  was  gaining,  he  gave  a 
wild  yell  and  turned  sharply  to  the  left  and  ran 
toward  a  river.  This  brought  a  harvested  field 
of  Kaffir  corn  between  us,  and  the  stubble  made 
bad  going — for  me — but  I  cut  across  it,  sprint- 
ing as  I  had  not  sprinted  in  years.  There  was 
now  only  a  slight  distance  to  gain.  It  shortened. 
It  shortened  still  more.  He  doubled  back.  I 
leaped  headlong,  and  tackled  him  squarely. 

I  have  tried  to  catch  a  greased  pig  at  a  county 
fair  and  I  have  played  football  some,  but  that 
boy  was  the  slipperiest  proposition  I  ever  had 
hold  of.  He  kicked,  squirmed,  scratched  and 


76  JUNGLE  TALES 

bit,  but  I  tucked  his  arms  behind  him,  jiu-jitsu 
fashion,  and  I  marched  him  toward  the  cheering 
crowd,  while  he  kicked  back  at  me  every  few 
steps. 

We  put  some  clothes  on  him — the  first  he  had 
worn  since  nobody  knows  when — and,  because 
of  the  circumstances  of  his  capture,  I  named 
him  Buffalo  Bill.  I  thought  the  next  thing  to 
do  was  to  give  him  a  job;  so  I  set  him  astride  a 
buffalo  cow  and  told  him  to  ride  behind  and  drive 
the  herd  back  to  the  mission  station.  All  the 
way  he  boo-hooed,  and  tried  to  get  the  sympathy 
of  passers-by,  but  when  they  asked  what  we 
were  doing  with  the  boy,  I  said  to  them,  "Don't 
butt  in!" 

We  reached  home  in  a  few  days,  and,  after  a 
scrub  and  a  shearing,  Buffalo  Bill  was  put  into 
school.  He  moped  around  for  a  while  and  made 
no  friends  until  he  began  to  get  his  bearings,  and 
then  he  suddenly  cheered  up  and  copied  the  other 
boys  with  astonishing  success,  and  got  to  be  a 
regular  favorite — popular,  actually.  He  studied 
hard  to  make  up  for  lost  time,  and  took  a  huge 
interest  in  athletics. 

Except  as  we  missionaries  introduce  them,  na- 


DAHLI  THE  MANGANESE  SLAVE    77 

tive  India  has  no  sports.  There  are  only  two 
sorts  of  native  men — the  toilers  and  the  thinkers. 
If  they  toil,  they  can't  be  thinkers.  If  they  are 
thinkers  they  must  have  delicate  hands  and  small 
muscles,  with  no  sign  of  labor  about  them  any- 
where. I  had  to  inculcate  other  ideals.  I  taught 
our  boys  to  "eat  air,"  as  they  called  taking  ex- 
ercise, and  become  fine,  big-chested,  hard-mus- 
cled runners  and  jumpers.  Buffalo  Bill  won 
three  prizes  for  scholarship,  but  he  grew  strong 
and  athletic  and  let  his  inky  black  hair  get  long 
like  a  football  player's,  and  there  was  fire  in  his 
dark  eyes,  and  he  feared  nothing  on  earth.  One 
day  the  chief  commissioner  gave  Bill  a  medal  for 
running,  and  it  was  my  duty  to  pin  it  on  the 
boy's  shirt.  As  I  did  so,  I  said  to  the  commis- 
sioner, "I  have  a  good  mind  to  keep  this,  for  I 
can  beat  him  running." 

You  can  guess  what  became  of  Buffalo  Bill. 
When  a  boy  has  been  saved  from  wild  barbarism 
and  brought  up  in  a  splendid  school,  and,  arriv- 
ing at  young  manhood,  sees  a  world  of  degraded 
heathen  folks  eking  out  a  miserable  existence  all 
around  him  in  poverty  and  utter  ignorance  and 
benightedness,  he  wants  to  turn  in  and  help  them. 


78  JUNGLE  TALES 

Buffalo  Bill  came  to  me  one  night  and  said, 
"Upidasli  pahije" — "I've  decided  to  preach." 

That  suited  me  right  down  to  the  ground,  but 
there  was  one  obstacle — his  name.  Who  ever 
heard  of  a  Reverend  Buffalo  Bill?  So  I  changed 
it  to  William.  But  he  keeps  his  football  hair. 


IV:    Boys  of  the  India  Jungle 


IV 

Boys  of  the  India  Jungle 

COBRAS— the  big,  black,  hooded  cobras  of 
India — are  the  deadliest  snakes  known, 
and  for  eight  years  I  lived  in  Nagpur,  the  city 
of  cobras,  where  Hindus  worship  them  as  gods. 
All  the  principal  roads  leading  into  Nagpur  have 
wayside  shrines  enclosing  sham  cobras  twisted 
about  sham  torches  and  splattered  with  red  paint 
and  decked  out  with  flowers,  and  upon  every 
snaky  idol  the  natives  throw  rice  and  sweetmeats 
and  clarified  butter.  However,  it  is  not  only  in 
Nagpur  that  cobra  worship  thrives.  You  see 
plenty  of  it  elsewhere — for  instance,  at  Woom- 
rauti. 

One  day  I  visited  a  family  of  weavers  at 
Woomrauti  and  found  them  weaving  a  long  strip 
of  cloth  in  an  alleyway,  and  a  small  boy  was  put- 
ting the  red  dye  on  the  threads  with  a  brush.  I 
wanted  that  boy  for  our  mission  school,  but  his 

81 


82  JUNGLE  TALES 

father  said,  "There'd  be  no  profit  in  that  for  me. 
He  puts  color  on  the  cloths."  Still,  I  had  some 
hope  of  persuading  the  man  and  so,  in  order  to 
gain  his  confidence  and  good  will,  I  went  into 
the  house  with  him  and  we  squatted  crosslegged 
on  the  smooth  dirt  floor. 

While  telling  him  about  our  school  and  the 
great  things  it  could  do  for  native  boys,  I  chanced 
to  notice  close  to  me  a  hole  where  a  bamboo 
driven  into  the  ground  had  rotted  away.  It 
piqued  my  curiosity,  so  I  asked,  a  trifle  ner- 
vously, "Yih  chuna  ache  gihr?" — "Is  that  a  rat 
hole?" 

ffNe,  sahib,  wuh  sampache  garh"  replied  the 
native — "No,  sir,  it's  a  snake  hole."  He  said 
this  as  calmly  as  you  might  mention  a  tank  for 
goldfish.  His  impassive  brown  face  betrayed 
no  anxiety.  His  dark  eyes  never  changed  their 
expression.  Yet  there,  right  in  his  very  house, 
dwelt  the  "hooded  death." 

I  wiggled  away  from  the  hole,  and  we  went 
on  talking,  but  I  watched  that  hole  intently  and 
after  a  little  while  I  saw  a  cobra's  mouse-like 
head  stealthily  emerge  from  it  and  then  pop 
back  in. 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE     83 

I  whipped  out  my  revolver,  but  the  native 
lifted  both  hands  in  vehement  protest,  and  his 
dark  eyes  flamed,  as  he  cried  excitedly,  "Kubhe 
ne,  sahib!" — "Never  do  that,  sir!" 

I  pulled  myself  together,  tucked  away  the  pis- 
tol, and  said  in  the  calmest  tone  I  could  manage, 
"How  long  has  the  snake  been  here?" 

"A  long  time,  sir." 

"Why  on  earth  don't  you  kill  it?" 

For  answer  he  solemnly  went  and  got  a  little 
red  earthen  dish,  poured  some  goat's  milk  into  it 
from  a  coconut  shell,  set  it  on  the  floor,  and 
pushed  it  over  toward  the  snake  hole  with  a  stick. 
Immediately  the  head  and  dreadful  hood  came 
up  through  the  hole,  and  a  bar  of  light  from  the 
open  door  fell  glistening  on  the  cobra's  scales.  I 
watched,  fascinated.  Five  feet:  long  and  big 
around  as  my  wrist,  the  deadly  serpent  emerged, 
and  began  to  suck  up  the  milk.  The  man  shut 
his  eyes  and  began  to  pray  to  the  snake,  and  when 
it  had  gone  back  into  its  hole,  I  said,  "Doesn't 
it  sometimes  do  mischief?" 

In  a  shuddering  sort  of  way,  but  not  with  any 
trace  of  deep  resentment,  the  man  replied,  "Sir, 
my  little  niece  lay  asleep  on  this  very  floor  one 


84  JUNGLE  TALES 

night,  and  next  morning  we  found  her  cold  and 
dead,  with  the  marks  of  snake  fangs  in  her 
wrist." 

"Let  me  kill  it!"  I  begged. 

He  would  listen  to  no  such  thing.  "Don't, 
sahib!"  he  cried.  "Perhaps  it  is  my  dead  father, 
who  has  been  born  again  as  a  cobra  because  he 
sinned  when  he  was  a  man,"  said  my  host;  "and 
perhaps  it  was  because  of  my  niece's  sins  that  the 
cobra  was  ordered  to  bite  her.  Who  am  I,  sir,  to 
fight  against  the  gods?" 

All  my  efforts  to  talk  him  out  of  his  belief 
failed  utterly,  and  I  failed  to  get  the  boy,  which 
cut  me  to  the  quick.  Missionaries  in  India  be- 
come used  to  seeing  grown-ups  play  fast  and 
loose  with  the  "hooded  death,"  and  come  to  look 
upon  cobra  worship  as  little  worse  than  other 
forms  of  heathenism — smallpox  worship,  for 
example — but  when  we  see  boys'  lives  endan- 
gered by  it  we  are  furious.  I  had  an  orphanage 
full  of  splendid,  brown-skinned  youngsters  all 
pep  and  jollity  and  brightness,  and  how  I  did 
want  that  boy  I  failed  to  get!  Think  what  we 
might  have  made  of  him.  Several  of  our  finest 
native  Christians  came  up  out  of  surroundings 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE    85 

even  more  shocking  than  his.  You  remember 
Gani,  the  wild  boy,  and  "Buffalo  Bill,"  another 
wild  boy,  and  there  have  been  many  more, 
among  them  a  lad  we  named  Titus. 

Up  in  the  Gond  Hills,  one  night,  we  had  a 
big  fire  roaring  and  crackling  to  keep  off  wild 
beasts  and  make  the  jungle  seem  a  little  home- 
like, and  the  men  were  lying  around — in  more 
ways  than  one — when  suddenly  two  horrified  na- 
tives rushed  up,  dragging  a  fifteen-year-old  boy 
who  had  been  hurt. 

ffDawai  pcdje!" — "We  want  medicine!" — they 
cried  breathlessly.  They  told  us  a  tiger  had  at- 
tacked a  cow,  and  the  boy  had  gone  after  him 
single-handed,  armed  only  with  a  kind  of  toma- 
hawk, and  hacked  him  so  viciously  that  the  tiger 
flew  to  a  low  tree  and  scrambled  up  into  a  fork 
about  four  feet  from  the  ground.  Even  then  the 
boy  chopped  at  his  legs  and  shouted  for  help 
until  the  villagers  came  and  dispatched  the  beast 
with  their  axes.  In  the  fight  the  tiger  had 
reached  out  and  mauled  the  boy's  arm  from  shoul- 
der to  elbow.  It  was  all  in  tatters  and  bleeding 
profusely. 

I  knew  that  if  the  tiger  had  been  eating  carrion 


86  JUNGLE  TALES 

recently,  its  claws  must  have  been  filthy,  and 
blood  poisoning  might  set  in;  so  I  washed  out 
the  gashes  with  antiseptics  and  bandaged  the 
arm.  The  boy  never  winced  under  the  treat- 
ment, even  when  I  knew  it  was  torture  to  him, 
and  he  told  of  hair-raising  encounters  he  had  had 
with  snakes  and  wild  beasts,  relating  his  experi- 
ences as  coolly  as  if  such  things  were  an  every- 
day affair  the  world  over. 

"Here's  a  boy  worth  saving,"  I  said  to  myself. 
I  explained  about  our  schools  and  how  we  make 
teachers  and  smart  men  out  of  jungle  lads,  and 
asked  him  to  go  away  with  me  and  get  to  be 
somebody,  and  he  consented.  We  saved  his  arm, 
and,  although  once  or  twice  he  ran  away,  we 
made  a  splendid  man  of  Titus. 

And  now  about  Gholi.  I  had  been  spending 
a  few  days  at  Godarwadi  in  the  Central  Prov- 
inces and,  before  leaving,  went  to  talk  things 
over  for  the  last  time  with  Dahli  Das,  a  native 
worker  there.  He  said  to  me,  "Come!  There 
is  something  I  want  to  show  you." 

"All  right,"  said  I.    "Lead  the  way." 

He  took  me  through  the  town  and  on  toward 
a  river  bank;  there  we  came  to  what  had  once 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE     87 

been  a  beautiful  garden.  We  entered  a  broken- 
down  gate,  passed  through  an  avenue  of  palms, 
and  before  us  in  the  center  of  the  garden  found 
a  square  well  with  the  water  twenty  feet  below 
the  ground  and  reached  by  steps  of  red  sand- 
stone. Above  the  well,  stone  elephants'  heads 
reached  out  from  four  directions,  the  tips  of  their 
trunks  touching.  Next  the  water  a  dozen  carved 
heads  trimmed  a  coping.  The  walls  and  steps 
were  moss  covered,  showing  that  they  had  not 
been  in  use  for  many  a  day.  Grass  sprouted 
from  the  crevices.  Two  of  the  elephants'  trunks 
had  broken  off.  All  was  now  ruin  and  decay 
and  a  dank,  green  scum  covered  the  pool. 

I  could  not  help  wishing  myself  back  in  the 
days  when  lotus  blossoms  floated  on  that  pool 
and  when  up  and  down  those  carven  steps  went 
dainty  Hindu  girls  to  bring  water  to  a  noble 
dwelling  in  the  garden — a  dwelling  of  which  not 
one  vestige  now  remained.  I  imagined  the  time 
when  richly  attired  Hindu  women  sat  among 
flowers  and  birds  beneath  the  moon,  with  a  tame 
leopard  to  guard  them,  or  perhaps  a  tiger  held 
in  leash  by  a  tall,  swarthy  slave,  while  with  na- 
tive music  they  beguiled  the  lovely  Eastern  night. 


88  JUNGLE  TALES 

At  the  foot  of  the  garden,  toward  the  river 
and  outlined  against  the  sky,  I  saw  a  group  of 
old  temples,  their  cracked  and  broken  with  neg- 
lect and  decay  and  by  storms  of  scores  of  years. 
As  we  approached  them,  I  wondered  what  it  was 
that  Dahli  Das  had  been  so  anxious  to  show  me, 
but  I  was  not  long  kept  waiting,  for,  in  answer 
to  his  musical  cry  of  ffKoi  hai?" — "Is  anyone 
there?" — the  seemingly  deserted  temples  ap- 
peared to  awaken,  and  out  from  them  poured  the 
saddest  throng  of  people  I  had  ever  looked  upon 
and  the  most  terrifying.  They  were  lepers ! 

Yes,  the  garden  that  had  once  been  so  beauti- 
ful was  now  an  abode  of  the  living  dead.  No 
more  flowers.  No  more  birds.  No  more  loveli- 
ness. Instead,  only  rags,  poverty,  contagious 
disease,  and  misery.  And  among  them  I  saw 
several  children  playing — untainted  as  yet. 

Dahli  Das  gathered  the  lepers  together  at  the 
foot  of  the  temple  steps,  and,  even  though  we 
were  careful  not  to  get  very  near  them,  I  shud- 
dered, not  alone  from  fear  of  contracting  the 
disease,  but  from  pity  when  I  saw  them  raise 
now  a  fingerless  hand,  now  a  stump  of  an  arm, 
as  they  talked  in  husky  leper  voices. 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE    89 

Yet  amid  it  all  there  was  something  beautiful 
and  bright,  for  they  were  Christians,  and  while 
their  poor  bodies  were  passing  away  they  looked 
forward  to  the  life  beyond  death. 

I  secured  one  of  the  little  lads — a  fine,  plump, 
curly-haired  youngster  they  called  Gholi,  which 
means  "little  ball."  But  we  had  a  heartbreaking 
scene  before  they  let  me  take  him  away.  Both 
his  parents  had  been  lepers ;  both  were  now  dead ; 
and  yet,  although  I  explained  that  no  one  is 
born  a  leper  and  that  the  boy  was  still  free  from 
taint,  but  that  if  he  remained  there  he  was  al- 
most sure  to  become  diseased  like  the  others,  they 
wept  and  wailed. 

We  named  him  Paulus,  and  he  has  grown  up 
to  be  a  splendid  man,  and  has  married  a  high- 
caste  girl.  They  have  two  of  the  sweetest  little 
children  I  ever  saw. 

In  India,  where  calamities  abound,  the  worst, 
perhaps,  is  famine,  and  it  was  during  a  great 
famine  that  we  found  a  boy  we  re-christened 
Luke.  Village  after  village  was  being  com- 
pletely wiped  out,  and  one  day  in  villages  far 
apart  two  pitiful  little  bundles  of  bones  were 
laid  at  the  roadside  in  hope  that  our  mission  cart 


90  JUNGLE  TALES 

would  come  rumbling  along  and  save  them — a 
baby  boy  and  a  baby  girl.  The  mission  cart  ar- 
rived in  time,  and  took  the  waifs  to  the  mission 
station,  where  they  grew  and  became  strong.  We 
found  a  lady  whose  baby  boy  had  died — a  little 
fellow  named  Benjamin — and  she  paid  for  the 
upbringing  and  education  of  the  tiny  Hindu  lad 
and  gave  him  her  dead  child's  name ;  but,  as  there 
were  other  Benjamins  in  our  missions  and  she 
wanted  no  mistake  made,  she  added  Luke;  so 
Benjamin  Luke  he  became  and  we  knew  him  gen- 
erally as  Luke.  We  called  the  girl  Miriam. 
Several  years  ago,  when  they  had  reached  man- 
hood and  womanhood,  Luke  and  Miriam  were 
married  in  the  mission  church  with  wedding  veil, 
orange  blossoms  and  all.  There  are  now  seven 
chapters  to  Luke. 

Did  I  say  that  famine  was  the  worst  of  calami- 
ties in  India?  I  take  that  back.  The  worst  ca- 
lamity is  Hinduism,  and  not  so  much  because 
of  what  Hinduism  is  as  because  of  the  atrocious 
things  it  compels  the  natives  to  do.  For  exam- 
ple, it  can  bring  to  pass  a  scene  like  the  one  that 
threw  Shadrach  into  our  hands.  An  awful 
scene!  Monstrous! 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE    91 

On  an  ash  heap  outside  a  native  village  four 
dogs  were  waiting  to  eat  a  tiny  Hindu  boy,  and 
no  one  cared.  He  was  ill.  His  mother  had 
wearied  of  his  crying  all  the  time,  and  had  taken 
him  to  the  priest,  who  said,  "Put  him  out  to  die; 
the  devil  is  in  his  stomach."  So  there  he  was. 
And  there  were  the  dogs — waiting. 

I  didn't  know  it.  With  a  string  of  lumber- 
ing bullock  carts,  I  was  a  long  way  off  in  the 
jungle  with  no  intention  whatever  of  pulling  up 
for  the  night  at  that  particular  village.  But 
some  vague  unreasoning  impulse  got  hold  of  me, 
and,  without  any  discernible  object  in  it,  I  cried 
out  to  my  driver,  "Lowkar  jao!" — "Hurry  up!" 

He  twisted  the  bullock's  tail  (that  is  the  way 
we  crank  up  our  "jungle  auto."  since  anyone 
dealing  with  a  self-starter  may  find  himself  deal- 
ing with  a  self -starter  that  is  likely  to  hook)  and 
we  crashed  through  the  forest  at  the  rate  of  five 
miles  an  hour.  By  sundown  we  had  reached  our 
camping  place  beneath  a  magnificent  tree  fully 
a  hundred  feet  across.  There  was  a  well  near-by, 
and  a  row  of  native  huts,  and  an  ash  heap.  On 
the  ash  heap  sat  four  mangy,  hungry-looking, 
big,  yellow  dogs,  eyeing  something  within  the  cir- 


92  JUNGLE  TALES 

cle  they  made.  Supposing  it  was  a  cat  they  were 
tormenting,  I  walked  over  to  the  ash  pile  and 
kicked  at  them  till  they  skulked  off,  with  white 
fangs  showing.  To  my  horror  I  saw  that  the 
center  of  their  interest  was  a  tiny  naked  boy  al- 
most dead,  his  poor,  skinny  body  as  gray  as  the 
ashes  he  sat  on.  He  was  so  sick  and  starved  that 
he  could  barely  keep  upright.  His  eyes  were 
shut.  He  had  a  great  sore  on  his  forehead,  and 
his  body  was  hideously  puffed  out  by  a  swollen 
spleen,  while  his  arms  were  about  as  big  around 
as  the  handle  of  a  child's  broom,  and  his  fingers 
the  size  of  slate  pencils.  Vermin  swarmed  all 
over  him. 

I  hurriedly  gave  him  a  stimulant,  and  ordered 
our  native  cook  to  prepare  some  broth,  while  I 
clipped  the  boy's  filthy  hair,  and,  after  massag- 
ing his  body  with  oil,  laid  him  on  the  straw  in  the 
bottom  of  my  cart.  Nothing  but  his  pulse — 
only  too  feeble  at  that — showed  he  was  still 
alive. 

After  two  days'  care  he  opened  a  pair  of  big, 
hollow  eyes  and  gazed  at  us  in  terror.  I  had  not 
beheld  such  eyes  since  I  fell  out  of  Grand- 
father's hayloft  and  saw  an  owl  on  a  rafter 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE     93 

solemnly  taking  me  in.  As  for  the  child's  ter- 
ror, I  understood  it  perfectly.  The  last  sight 
those  eyes  had  rested  on  had  been  the  group  of 
hungry  curs  waiting  for  him  to  die. 

I  smiled  at  him.  I  don't  believe  he  remem- 
bered anyone's  ever  smiling  at  him  before.  He 
smiled  back  and  won  our  hearts  completely.  I 
took  him  to  our  school,  and  named  him  Shad- 
rach  because  I  found  him  on  the  ashes.  When 
he  got  to  be  a  man  he  became  a  power  among  the 
natives,  traveling  from  village  to  village  and 
teaching  them  to  cast  off  Hinduism. 

And  now  comes  the  story  that  delights  me 
most  of  all.  Far  back  in  the  jungle  I  came  one 
day  to  an  old,  deserted  house  about  forty  feet 
square,  with  its  one  door  off  and  its  grass  roof 
caved  in,  and  heard  boyish  voices  shouting  in 
chorus,  "Maro!  Maro!  MaroF — "Beat  him! 
Beat  him!  Beat  him!" 

I  sprang  from  my  cart,  and  ran  and  looked 
in  through  the  open  doorway.  I  saw  twenty- 
two  small  boys,  not  one  of  them  more  than  ten 
years  old,  standing  in  a  ring,  while  on  the  floor 
were  two  boys,  one  sitting  on  the  other  and  beat- 


94  JUNGLE  TALES 

ing  him  in  the  face.  "Tamba!"  I  cried — "Stop 
that!" 

They  jumped  into  the  air  about  a  yard,  well 
scared,  and  looked  around  for  a  way  of  escape, 
but  I  blocked  the  only  door,  so  they  looked  at 
one  another  in  mighty  comical  dismay. 

I  smiled,  and  it  was  a  friendly,  pitying  kind 
of  smile,  for  they  were  as  forlorn  a  gang  of 
youngsters  as  I  ever  beheld — hungry,  dirty,  and 
frightened — and  presently  a  boy  back  in  the 
crowd  said  to  the  other,  "Don't  be  afraid!  The 
sahib  has  a  twinkle  in  his  eye." 

Then  I  said,  "Boys,  how  would  you  like  to 
have  a  full  stomach  three  times  a  day  and  a  nice 
place  to  sleep?" 

They  stared  at  one  another,  puzzled  and  very 
much  astonished,  and  I  went  on.  "If  you'll 
come  with  me  I'll  give  you  a  place  to  sleep  and 
shoes  for  your  feet  and  clothes  to  keep  you  warm 
and  dry  in  the  rain  and  three  square  meals  every 
day." 

IfSaccha  bat  hai?"  said  one  of  them — "Is  it 
true?" 

I  replied,  "Ishwar  saccha  hoi" — "Before  God, 
it  is  true." 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE     95 

For  a  few  moments  they  held  a  grand  pow- 
wow among  themselves,  and  at  last  a  boy  said 
to  the  crowd,  "I  am  ready  to  go  with  him."  And 
I  walked  away  toward  my  cart  with  two  dozen 
wretched  orphans  tagging  after  me,  for  they  had 
come  from  villages  where  smallpox  and  the 
plague  had  wrought  terrible  havoc  among  the 
natives  and  the  boys  had  run  for  their  lives  and 
had  lived  together  in  the  ruined  temple  with  only 
such  food  as  they  could  find. 

All  told,  I  have  picked  up  something  like  two 
hundred  Hindu  boys,  and,  while  I  can't  say  I 
ever  went  at  it  from  policy,  it  has  been  the  best 
policy  conceivable,  for,  out  of  the  two  hundred, 
quite  a  number  have  become  native  missionaries, 
and  a  native  missionary  has  an  influence  no  for- 
eigner can  hope  to  gain.  In  villages  where  the 
people  would  resent  interference  by  a  white  man, 
they  gather  in  great  crowds  to  hear  Gani  sing, 
or  to  listen  while  "Buffalo  Bill,"  the  athlete  who 
was  once  a  wild  boy,  tells  them  how  they  may  es- 
cape from  the  abominable  oppression  of  Hindu- 
ism, or  while  Shadrach,  the  eloquent,  tears  Hin- 
duism to  ribbons.  And  nothing  can  equal  the 
superb  devotion  of  these  lads.  As  a  native  mis- 


96  JUNGLE  TALES 

sionary  Benjamin  Luke  gets  a  house  to  live  in 
and  it  has  a  garden  full  of  fruit  trees,  but  his 
salary  is  a  joke.  Not  long  ago  an  Englishman 
came  along  and  said,  "Luke,  what  is  your  sal- 
ary?" 

"Forty-five  rupees  a  month." 

"If  you  will  leave  this  work  and  take  a  gov- 
ernment job,  we  will  give  you  a  hundred  and 
eighty.  Think  it  over,  and  let  me  know  your 
decision." 

"You  can  have  my  answer  now,  sahib"  The 
Englishman  was  delighted,  as  it  seemed  to  him 
that  there  could  be  only  one  answer,  but  Luke 
continued,  "Ever  since  the  day  when  my  little 
wife  and  I  were  laid  out  on  the  road  to  starve, 
the  mission  people  have  been  our  greatest 
friends.  They  have  fed  us,  clothed  us,  educated 
us  and  loved  us,  and  I  wouldn't  leave  them  now 
for  ten  thousand  rupees  a  month." 

In  the  light  of  all  this,  you  can  see  how  it  cuts 
when  I  remember  the  boy  I  failed  to  get — the 
weaver  boy  at  Woomrauti,  in  whose  house 
lurked  the  "hooded  death,"  and  who,  if  still 
alive,  is  doubtless  saying  his  prayers  to  a  snake. 
Ankus  was  the  boy's  name.  It  means  an  ele- 


BOYS  OF  THE  INDIA  JUNGLE    97 

phant  goad.  What  a  goad  to  drive  ahead  our 
work  he  might  have  made,  and  indeed  may  yet 
make !  For  we  have  not  done  with  Ankus  by  a 
long  shot.  Thanks  largely  to  the  devotion  of 
Hindu  boys  we  have  rescued,  we  are  undermin- 
ing the  caste  system  and  putting  democracy  in 
its  place  and  we  are  substituting  for  snake  wor- 
ship an  enlightened  faith.  In  a  word,  we  are 
making  a  new  India,  where  Ankus  will  meet  on 
every  hand  the  ideas  and  principles  and  applied 
decencies  of  the  good  old  U.  S.  A. 


V:     Trapped  Among  Crocodiles 


Trapped  Among"  Crocodiles 

HUGE,  bloodthirsty  crocodiles,  anywhere 
from  ten  to  a  dozen  feet  long,  swarm  in 
the  rivers  of  South  India,  and  even  a  river  bank 
is  dangerous,  for  the  monsters  dig  a  hole  under 
it  and  crawl  out  to  bask  in  the  blistering  sun- 
shine, or  swim  close  to  the  shore  until  some  guile- 
less deer  or  goat — or  perhaps  a  man — approaches 
the  stream.  Then,  striking  a  terrible,  swift 
blow  with  its  tail,  a  crocodile  knocks  the  victim 
— splash! — into  the  muddy  water,  and  darts 
away  with  him  to  its  lair. 

To  make  matters  worse,  there  are  no  bridges 
— none  whatever — and  when  people  ask  if  we 
have  automobiles  in  India,  I  tell  them,  "Yes — 
fords  in  all  our  rivers."  The  happy-go-lucky 
road  master,  out  there,  sees  no  need  for  bridges, 
as  the  seasons  are  so  arranged  that  except  during 

the  Christmas  "mango  showers"  there  is  abso- 
101 


102  JUNGLE  TALES 

lutely  no  rainfall.  When  the  rains  are  on,  and 
brimming  rivers  alive  with  man-eating  reptiles 
— oh,  well,  let  sensible  folks  stay  at  home. 

It  is  a  satisfactory  enough  rule  for  Hindus, 
perhaps,  but  not  for  a  missionary  like  myself; 
rain  or  shine,  drought  or  flood,  we  fellows  are 
always  on  the  jump. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  touring  the  Bastar  State 
with  a  squad  of  native  Christians  in  three  little 
two-wheeled  bullock  carts,  and  along  towards 
dusk  one  evening  we  came  to  the  Pranhita  River, 
a  tributary  of  the  sacred  Godavari.  As  usual, 
there  was  no  bridge,  and  yet  there  seemed  to  be 
a  fair  chance  of  inducing  the  "muchis,"  or  fish- 
ermen, to  fetch  their  boats.  Boats,  did  I  say? 
I  must  beg  a  decent,  self-respecting  boat's  par- 
don for  the  slander.  They  are  nothing  more  or 
less  than  rude  logs  hollowed  out  like  a  horse 
trough  and  fastened  together  in  pairs  with  bam- 
boos and  cocoanut  rope  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave 
a  space  of  about  five  feet  between.  A  clumsy 
deck  at  bow  and  stern  provides  standing  room 
for  the  boatmen,  who  pole  the  craft  along.  A 
cart  has  to  be  painfully  lifted  aboard  and  placed 
with  a  wheel  in  the  hollow  of  each  log;  then  you 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  103 

back  the  cart  to  the  middle  of  your  jungle  ferry- 
boat, fix  your  last  thought  upon  your  family,  say 
your  prayers,  and  start  off.  The  bullocks  swim 
behind. 

We  hallooed  at  the  top  of  our  lungs  for 
mucliis  and  kept  it  up  for  several  minutes,  but  no 
muchis  appeared.  Gingerly  approaching  the 
bank,  we  gazed  anxiously  upstream  and  down. 
Not  a  boat  was  to  be  seen.  It  looked  like  a  clear 
case  of  ford  it  or  quit,  and  nobody  wanted  to 
quit,  though  I  may  say  that  a  nastier,  more,  unin- 
viting ford  had  seldom  confronted  me.  Float- 
ing logs,  any  one  of  which  might  overturn  a 
cart,  went  racing  by.  Swirling,  reddish  brown 
eddies — the  Pranhita  seemed  fully  one-eighth 
mud — showed  where  drifted  rocks  lay  strewn 
along  the  bottom. 

As  we  stood  there,  hesitating — or  rather,  con- 
sidering— one  of  my  men  pointed  significantly 
at  certain  marks  in  the  mire  at  his  feet.  "Croco- 
dile tracks,  sahib,"  said  he,  and,  sure  enough, 
there  were  tracks  in  profusion — footprints  of 
savage  reptiles  that  had  but  lately  slunk  away 
into  the  water.  We  saw  tail  marks,  too,  and  hol- 
lows where  the  big  beasts  had  lain  all  day  in  the 


104  JUNGLE  TALES 

sun ;  and  there  was  evidence  that  a  ferocious  pair 
had  been  battling — deep  holes,  with  mire  and 
blood  mixed,  told  the  story. 

I  was  strongly  tempted  to  pitch  our  tents 
right  where  we  were  and  postpone  the  crossing 
till  daybreak,  for  already  the  light  had  begun  to 
fail.  But  time  was  precious,  and  I  realized  that 
it  would  be  slow  work  rigging  our  carts  for  the 
trip  across  and  slow  work  crossing ;  better  have  it 
over  with  at  once,  and  camp  on  the  other  side,  as 
we  could  then  count  on  resuming  our  journey 
before  sunrise.  Nobody  likes  to  ford  an  angry 
stream  in  the  dusk,  especially  where  crocodiles 
abound,  yet  business  is  business,  so  I  put  the  mat- 
ter up  to  my  men.  "We  are  not  afraid,  sahib," 
said  they.  "Let's  risk  it — the  sooner,  the  bet- 
ter," and  just  then  a  turbaned  native  came  trot- 
ting to  the  river  bank.  I  thought,  "Excellent! 
He'll  know  about  muchis"  and — alas,  he  did; 
the  bubonic  plague  was  raging  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, it  seemed,  and  the  muchis  had  run  for  their 
lives. 

Naturally,  this  increased  our  desire  to  hurry 
onward,  but  the  stranger  had  a  bad  opinion  of 
the  ford  and  unbosomed  himself  about  it  in  a 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  105 

style  I  found  distinctly  unpleasant.  "Only  a 
week  ago,"  said  he,  "three  natives  were  fording 
the  Pranhita  at  this  very  place,  when  one  of 
them — a  woman,  sahib — suddenly  gave  a  shrill, 
piercing  cry  and  threw  up  her  arms  and  disap- 
peared. Not  a  trace  of  her  has  been  seen,  for 
you  know  the  ways  of  the  crocodile,  it  eats  every- 
thing— clothes,  bangles,  earrings,  toe  rings,  and 
all." 

In  pure  fun  I  said  to  the  man,  "I'll  give  you 
a  rupee"  (thirty-three  cents,  or  about  three  days' 
pay  for  ordinary  labor)  "if  you  will  walk  across 
that  ford,  watch  for  holes  and  rocks,  and  see  if 
we  can  get  over  with  our  carts." 

I  never  expected  him  to  take  me  up,  though 
the  natives  are  a  great  deal  less  afraid  of  croco- 
diles than  they  ought  to  be,  and  sometimes  run 
awful  risks  hunting  them.  The  usual  way  is 
to  get  a  huge  chunk  of  meat  and  thrust  into  it 
a  piece  of  bamboo  sharpened  at  both  ends,  and 
tie  a  rope  to  the  meat,  and  on  the  other  end  of 
the  rope  tie  a  log,  and  then  throw  the  bait  into 
the  river  near  the  crocodile's  lair.  The  beast 
swims  out,  presently,  sniffs  the  meat,  and  gulps 
it  down  whole.  Of  course,  the  sharp  stick  lodges 


106  JUNGLE  TALES 

in  his  stomach  and  the  creature  is  fast,  and  the 
floating  log  shows  where  he  is.  After  a  short 
while,  the  stick  tears  his  insides,  causing  hemor- 
rhage, and  the  water  turns  crimson,  and  in  a  few 
hours  he  is  dead  and  the  natives  haul  in  the  rope 
and  get  him  ashore.  But  a  favorite  sport  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Cawnpore,  Allahabad,  and 
other  northern  cities,  especially  those  on  the 
Ganges,  is  shooting  crocodiles  from  boats.  For 
British  Civil  Service  people,  this  is  big  fun ;  for 
the  natives,  however,  it  is  often  fatal,  as  their 
part  in  the  merry  game  is  to  dive  after  a  dead 
crocodile  when  he  sinks  to  the  bottom,  and  there 
are  live  crocodiles  lurking  about  down  there,  and 
many  a  poor  native  has  been  seized  and  never 
come  up. 

It  has  always  puzzled  me  to  know  why  natives 
will  consent  to  hunt  these  reptiles,  for  the  croco- 
dile is  sacred.  Women  used  to  throw  their  chil- 
dren into  the  Ganges  as  offerings  to  crocodiles, 
and,  although  the  British  have  mostly  put  a  stop 
to  it,  the  thing  is  occasionally  done  even  now 
when  some  half-crazy  fakir  has  worked  up  the 
people  to  a  frenzy  of  hysteria.  While  I  was  in 
India,  a  native  woman  was  seen  going  toward  the 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  107 

Ganges ;  she  had  an  emaciated  babe  in  her  arms 
— weak,  puny,  and  sore-eyed — while  in  front  of 
her  ran  a  plump  little  boy  of  five.  When  she 
returned,  she  still  had  the  sickly  babe,  and  her 
face  shone  with  a  fanatical  light.  As  she  neared 
her  village,  a  missionary  met  her,  and,  noticing 
that  she  had  only  one  child  now,  whereas  she  had 
started  out  with  two,  asked  what  had  become  of 
the  little  boy.  The  woman  hesitated,  then  said, 
slowly,  "I  gave  him  to  Mother  Ganga."  As- 
tonished at  her  words,  the  missionary  exclaimed, 
"But  why  did  you  throw  the  fine,  strong  child 
to  the  crocodiles  and  keep  the  weak  one!"  She 
replied,  "I  don't  know  what  you  Americans  do, 
but  we  Hindus  always  give  the  best  to  the  god." 
Now,  as  I  say,  I  was  only  joking  when  I  of- 
fered the  turbaned  native  a  rupee  to  wade  across 
the  Pranhita  and  see  if  our  carts  would  be  safe  in 
fording.  Much  to  my  surprise,  he  said,  eagerly, 
"Sahib,  I'll  chance  it."  Still  in  fun,  I  called  his 
bluff.  Pressing  the  rupee  into  his  hand,  I  told 
him  I  wished  him  luck,  and,  before  I  could  stop 
the  fellow,  he  hitched  up  his  dhoti  to  his  waist, 
and,  with  a  rascally  grin  I  failed  to  understand 
at  the  time,  plunged  in. 


108  JUNGLE  TALES 

It  is  a  wonder  that  he  got  across  at  all.  The 
turbulent  water  reached  his  waist  and  now  and 
then  almost  his  shoulders.  Floating  logs  barely 
missed  him.  But  he  made  a  fine  dash  of  it,  from 
a  sporting  point  of  view,  though  from  our  own 
it  was  an  out-and-out  swindle,  for  he  took  such 
long,  high  steps  that  any  number  of  deep  holes 
and  dangerous  stones  might  have  been  there  with- 
out his  finding  them  for  us,  and  any  number  of 
hungry  crocodiles,  too.  Reaching  the  opposite 
bank,  he  ran  nimbly  ashore,  whisked  round,  and, 
salaaming  profoundly,  called  out.  "Thank  you 
sahib,  for  the  rupee!  I  live  on  this  side  of  the 
river  and  was  going  to  wade  across  anyhow." 

Still,  my  rupee  had  not  been  squandered  fruit- 
lessly altogether;  at  least  we  now  knew  more  or 
less  definitely  how  deep  the  Pranhita  was  at  that 
ford,  and  could  rig  our  carts  accordingly.  As 
near  as  I  could  determine,  everything  put  aboard 
a  cart  must  be  slung  two  feet  or  more  above  the 
floor  on  horizontal  rods  of  bamboo — quite  a  job 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it.  Up  went  rifle, 
tents,  supplies — in  short,  our  entire  parapher- 
nalia— while  the  bullocks  rested  in  as  pretty  a 
nook  of  riverside  jungle  as  you  will  ever  behold. 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES   109 

I  remember  the  superb  mango  tree,  like  mounds 
of  living  green ;  and  tapering  bamboos,  creaking 
and  swaying  aloft;  and  jungle  lime  trees,  their 
branches  decked  with  orchids  painted  red  and 
blue  and  pink;  and  tree  trunks  laden  with 
ferns  and  tropical  moss  and  lichens.  But  I 
hardly  think  the  bullocks  had  an  eye  for  the 
beauty  of  the  scene.  They  were  much  too 
cruelly  pestered  by  the  flies  that  buzzed  around 
them  in  clouds.  Nor  was  I  especially  excited 
about  the  charms  of  lovely  nature,  myself.  I 
kept  thinking  crocodile — recalling  the  story  of 
the  woman  devoured  alive  out  yonder,  recalling 
the  sight  of  tell-tale  marks  in  the  mud  at  the 
river's  brim,  and  trying,  as  best  I  could,  to  guess 
where  the  crocodile  lair  was.  Not  far  down 
stream,  I  concluded,  else  why  should  the  beasts 
have  congregated  in  such  numbers  at  this  par- 
ticular point? 

When  at  last  all  was  ready,  the  first  cart,  with 
our  least  precious  possessions  aboard,  went  lurch- 
ing and  splashing  in  as  pilot.  High  up  in  the 
top  of  my  own  cart,  I  stood  on  two  pieces  of  bam- 
boo and  clung  to  the  woven-bamboo  roof  for 


110  JUNGLE  TALES 

dear  life.  Then  came  the  third  cart,  with  my 
tent,  boxes,  food,  and  cook. 

The  men  behaved  magnificently,  and  I  sup- 
pose that  I  behaved  fairly  well,  myself — that  is, 
in  so  far  as  outward  conduct  went — but  oh,  the 
tumult  of  affrighted  misgivings  within  me! 
Ashore,  I  relish  a  fight  with  a  beast — tiger,  black 
leopard,  panther,  black  bear,  any  sort  of  wild 
creature  you  choose  to  name.  Afloat,  I  believe 
I  should  rather  enjoy  whaling.  Yet  here  I  was 
neither  ashore  nor  afloat,  and  I  saw  no  prospect 
of  a  fight — just  the  grim,  hideous  chance  of  get- 
ting upset  in  midstream  and  falling  a  prey  to 
the  kind  of  monster  that  attacks  you  when  you 
are  most  helpless  and  attacks  from  under  cover 
at  that.  For,  even  had  not  the  dusk  thickened 
into  something  disgustingly  like  darkness,  the 
Pranhita  was  so  muddy  that  crocodiles  close  to 
its  eddying  surface  would  have  been  practically 
invisible. 

Don't  tell  me  that  I  was  stupid  not  to  be  em- 
boldened by  having  so  lately  seen  a  native  cross 
that  very  ford.  The  native  could  hurry;  how- 
ever bloodcurdling  his  mortal  peril,  it  was  soon 
over  with,  whereas,  in  our  case,  hurrying  was 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  111 

simply  out  of  the  question.  Tired  by  a  long, 
hard  pull  through  the  jungle,  our  bullocks  made 
exasperatingly  slow  progress,  and  every  now  and 
then  they  would  calmly  halt  and  drink,  unaware 
that,  at  any  moment,  some  voracious,  twelve-foot 
crocodile  might  catch  the  scent  and  come  like  a 
flash. 

How  our  carts  bumped  and  tilted  as  we  made 
our  way  out  into  that  turbulent  river!  Slinging 
the  loads  so  high  aboard  them  had  brought  up 
the  center  of  gravity  to  the  danger  point,  if  not 
beyond  it,  and,  the  farther  we  went,  the  deeper 
the  water  got  and  the  swifter  the  current.  Then, 
too,  the  bigger  were  the  loose  rocks  the  Pranhita 
rolled  along  its  bottom.  A  dozen  times  my  cart 
struck  stones,  heeled  over,  and,  after  all  but 
upsetting,  somehow  righted  itself.  A  dozen 
times  my  heart  was  in  my  mouth.  And  now 
the  peril  from  drifting  logs  increased  appallingly, 
for,  with  the  quickened  current,  they  rushed 
past  us  at  redoubled  speed.  What  if  one  should 
hit? 

As  it  grew  darker,  a  thing  happened  that  by 
no  means  tended  to  relieve  my  anxieties;  down- 
stream, only  a  short  distance  away,  the  crocodiles 


112  JUNGLE  TALES 

set  up  a  hoarse,  reptilian  hullaballoo,  half  croak- 
ing, half  barking,  and  whenever  the  bullocks 
halted  and  the  rattle  and  creak  of  our  carts  ceased 
for  a  moment,  we  would  hear  the  unamiable 
chorus.  It  got  on  my  nerves.  It  was  gruesome 
— and  seemingly  unnatural.  Familiar  as  I  was 
with  the  sound,  I  had  never  got  reconciled  to  it. 
I  don't  know  why,  but  one  expects  silence  of  rep- 
tiles or  at  most  nothing  louder  than  the  swish 
of  the  hooded  cobra  or  its  hiss. 

We  were  about  halfway  across  the  river,  when, 
all  of  a  sudden,  the  first  cart  stopped  with  a  jerk 
that  nearly  snapped  the  bullocks'  yoke,  and  the 
driver  shouted,  ffEk  putr  ahe,  sahib!" — "There 
is  a  great  rock,  sir !"  No  mistake,  the  wheel  was 
nicely  "chocked"  by  a  stone  as  big  as  a  bushel 
basket,  directly  in  the  track.  The  off  bullock 
kept  pulling.  In  the  boiling  current,  the  top- 
heavy  cart  swung  round,  with  one  wheel  still 
blocked,  straight  toward  the  crocodiles. 

"Tamba!  Tamba!"— "Stop!  Stop !"— yelled 
the  driver,  yanking  furiously  at  the  rope  tied 
through  the  bullock's  tender  nose.  Up  went  the 
animal's  head,  and  he  stopped — just  in  time. 

I  sprang  into  the  water — it  was  up  to  my  arm- 


I   SPRANG  INTO  THE  WATER,    AND   PLUNGED   HEADLONG 
TOWARD   THE  STALLED  CART. 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  113 

pits,  nearly — and  plunged  headlong  toward  the 
stalled  cart,  and  I  remember  noticing  as  I  did  so 
that  the  crocodiles  no  longer  barked  and  croaked. 
Had  they  caught  the  scent?  Were  they  coming? 

It  was  a  mere  momentary  shudder,  for  there 
is  something  bracing,  mentally  and  morally  as 
well  as  physically,  in  a  leap  into  cool  water,  and 
something  tonic  in  the  struggle  to  keep  one's  foot- 
ing there.  I  reached  the  cart.  I  laid  hold  of  the 
obstructed  wheel.  With  all  my  might  I  lifted. 
But  these  bullock  carts  are  clumsy  affairs,  with 
solid  wooden  wheels,  made  by  sawing  a  tree 
trunk  across,  and  there  was  the  driver's  weight 
added  to  that  of  the  cart,  and  the  weight 
of  baggage  added  to  the  driver's.  Try  how  I 
would,  I  was  unable  to  budge  the  thing-  until  the 
restless  night  bullock  began  pulling,  and  then  up 
the  wheel  moved  over  the  stone  and  down — 
square  on  my  foot.  Wheel  and  foot  sank  deep 
into  the  mud.  The  bullock  stopped  pulling.  I 
was  pinned  fast,  with  my  back  to  the  crocodiles. 

Since  then,  I  have  thought  of  at  least  half  a 
dozen  clever  things  I  might  have  done,  but,  even 
if  I  had  had  them  clearly  in  mind  at  the  time, 
I  doubt  if  I  should  have  done  them,  the  pain  was 


114  JUNGLE  TALES 

so  excruciating.     Instead,  I  shouted  for  help. 

Instantly  there  were  fine  splashes  in  the  water, 
as  three  courageous  native  Christians  sprang 
overboard  and  rushed  to  liberate  me.  Several 
logs  spun  by  while  they  were  coming,  and  an 
object — certainly  not  a  log,  for  it  was  going  up- 
stream— went  past  me,  close  by,  leaving  a  wake 
of  ghastly  eddies.  A  crocodile?  I  thought  so 
then,  and  believed  my  last  hour  had  arrived. 

They  say  that  drowning  people  review  in  a 
flash  their  entire  lives,  and  I  fancy  the  saying  is 
a  true  one,  for  I  had  an  experience  a  trifle  re- 
sembling it,  there  in  the  muddy  water  with  my 
foot  pinned  fast  and  with  hungry  monsters  ready 
to  eat  me.  A  thousand  memories  crowded  upon 
one  another,  but  only  memories  of  my  work  in 
India  and  of  boys  I  had  known  there,  and  the 
faces  of  those  boys  were  like  the  faces  of  a  close- 
packed  multitude  filling  the  whole  length  and 
breadth  of  my  consciousness.  One  face  alone — 
my  little  son's — was  white.  And  how  distinct, 
how  real,  the  others  were!  I  saw  dark-skinned 
Paulus,  and  "Buffalo  Bill,"  and  Gani,  and  all 
the  rest — boys  taken  from  among  lepers  and  from  j 
among  the  water  buffaloes  and  from  among  wild 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  115 

beasts  in  the  jungle;  boys  cast  off  in  babyhood 
by  their  parents  and  left  to  die  and  rescued  just 
in  time;  boys  picked  up  in  starving  villages  in 
the  day  of  famine  or  saved  from  villages  where 
cholera  or  the  plague  meant  death  to  any  who 
remained  there. 

It  is  true  that  many  of  them  were  still  boys — 
in  fact,  a  goodly  number  were  then  at  the  Meth- 
odist orphanage  school — but  even  those  who  had 
grown  to  splendid  young  manhood  and  were 
valiantly  helping  us  to  fight  heathenism  in  India 
had  childish  faces  once  more.  I  suppose  it  was 
because  I  had  specialized  on  boys  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  my  work  and  developed  a  huge  love 
for  them.  Seeing  them  now,  so  vividly,  gave  an 
added  terror  to  my  plight,  for  it  was  an  awful 
prospect,  this,  of  having  my  career  cut  short  be- 
fore I  could  know  how  the  majority  of  those 
blessed  youngsters  would  turn  out.  Do  you  ap- 
preciate? We  had  given  them  their  only  chance 
at  liberation  from  a  system  of  cruel  tyranny  cen- 
turies old — a  tyranny  that  denied  them  educa- 
tion, doomed  them  to  abject  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness, and  forbade  them  to  rise,  their  sole  of- 
fense being  that  they  were  born  into  an  outcaste 


116  JUNGLE  TALES 

tribe  lower  than  the  lowest  caste  in  an  order  of 
society  where  caste  is  everything.  Right  in  the 
midst  of  that  atrocious  order  of  society,  we  had 
set  them  free.  What  now?  Would  they  reward 
us  for  all  this  by  making  good?  Time  would  tell. 
How  I  wanted  time — years  and  years  and  years 
of  it — to  see  my  boys  gain  positions  of  distinction 
and  influence  and  finally  help  to  overthrow  the 
whole  outrageous  structure  of  Hinduism!  It  is 
possible  that  missionaries  now  working  in  India 
will  live  to  behold  precisely  that.  I  wanted  to 
be  one  of  them. 

It  seemed  as  if  an  age  went  by  before  my  men 
were  at  my  side,  lifting  the  heavy  cart  wheel  off 
my  foot,  and  turning  me  loose,  but  now — hurrah 
for  those  splendid  native  Christians  and  their 
pluck!  They  fairly  dragged  me  through  the 
water,  back  to  my  cart,  and  in  I  climbed,  rejoic- 
ing, as  our  caravan  started  again. 

It  is  curious  how  a  man's  mind  will  act  in  an 
affair  like  this.  While  I  was  up  to  my  neck  in 
muddy  water,  and  pinned  fast  there,  and,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  certain  to  perish,  I  reckoned  only 
with  the  consequences  of  disaster.  But  now, 
when  I  was  once  more  high,  if  not  dry,  in  my 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  117 

cart,  I  shook  with  terror,  for,  instead  of  seeing 
the  bright,  handsome,  brown  faces  of  Hindu 
boys,  I  saw  in  imagination  the  wide-open,  sickly- 
pink  mouths  of  man-eating  crocodiles.  One  con- 
fronts peril  readily  enough  at  the  moment ;  after- 
ward, it  horrifies  and  unnerves,  and  you  would 
have  laughed  if  you  had  seen  how,  drenched  with 
muddy  water  though  I  was,  I  struggled  to  keep 
my  place  on  the  bamboo  rods  that  still  left  an 
inch  or  so  of  space  between  them  and  the  raging 
Pranhita.  Not  by  bribe  or  threat  or  anything 
short  of  brute  force  could  you  have  made  me  dip 
so  much  as  a  left  toe  into  that  river  again. 

It  is  curious,  too,  that,  even  in  this  affrighted 
mood,  I  should  have  fallen  to  wondering  why 
Hindus  call  the  crocodile  a  "mugger"  and  figur- 
ing out  an  explanation  that  is  probably  all  wrong. 
I  said  to  myself,  "Perhaps  they  have  heard  Eng- 
lishmen or  Americans  use  the  vulgar  slang  word 
'mug'  for  an  ugly  face,  and  as  the  crocodile  has 
an  ugly  face  that  reaches  a  third  of  the  way  back 
to  his  ugly  tail,  christened  him  accordingly" — 
a  reasonable  guess,  as  guesses  go,  but  a  guess  not 
by  any  means  calculated  to  relieve  my  distress 
of  mind.  I  hated  to  think  of  that  "mug." 


118  JUNGLE  TALES 

Armed  with  innumerable,  hideously  sharp  teeth# 
it  was  a  horror.  To  be  seized  by  it  and  dragged 
away  to  one's  death  beneath  the  Pranhita — can 
you  conceive  of  any  fate  more  abominable? 

It  was  getting  dark.  The  jungle  along  the 
opposite  shore  looked  dank  and  blackish,  and 
suggested  the  presence  of  wild  beasts,  which  were 
probably  there  in  considerable  numbers,  but  oh, 
how  I  longed  to  reach  it!  We  were  making  fair 
progress.  A  little  more,  and  the  Pranhita  would 
be  shallower;  then  a  little  more  and  we  should 
approach  terra  firma.  I  grew  cheerful.  I  said 
to  myself,  "Buck  up,  old  man!  The  worst  is 
over." 

But  what  was  this?  Swarms  of  flies  had  tor- 
mented our  bullocks  since  the  start,  yet  we  had 
thought  little  of  it,  though  the  bullocks  had,  and 
at  last  one  of  mine  found  a  nice,  simple,  con- 
venient way  to  escape  flies — by  lying  down! — 
and  sank  into  the  stream,  with  only  his  nose 
above  water.  Round  swung  my  cart,  instantly, 
hit  by  a  floating  log  and  over  it  tilted  and  nearly 
upset,  and  I  knew  that  presently  bullocks,  cart, 
driver,  missionary  and  all  would  be  adrift  among 
the  crocodiles. 


TRAPPED  AMONG  CROCODILES  119 

"Shimpi    puckare!"—"Twisi     his     tail  1"— I 
shouted  to  the  driver,  for  that  is  how  we  crar 
up  our  jungle  flivver,  and  I  confess  that  I 
still  unable  to  understand  how  the  fellow  m 
aged  to  obey  my  order,  though  somehov 
— flung  himself  over  in  a  feat  worthy 
contortionist,  grabbed  the  bullock's  t 
the  water,  and  twisted  it  furiously. 


VI:    BalUa  and  the  Bandit 


h. 

hita 

bullock 

angry  kick. 

his  mate  with  him. 

mighty  splashing,  ai 

lowed  close.    It  was  a  i 


IA     120  JUNGLE  TALES 

Arn  — and>  a^  *^e  while»  my  driver's  teeth  kept  gnaw- 
it  wasP^  at  *^at  ta^'  and  more  and  more  Pranhita 
away  to1*  down  his  disgusted  throat.    Tilting,  bump- 
you  cone  lurcnmg»  our  carts  at  last  reached  the  op- 
It  was  efeank — thanks  to  ox-tail  soup  on  the  run! 
opposite  shorfched  our  tents  under  a  ^eai  banYan 
suggested  the  pot  a  fire  ^oin^' to  keeP  off  wild  beasts, 
probably  there  Lfor  a  lon^  time  in  front  of  ii:'  ^^ 
how  I  longed  to  reach  it!    We  were  makhJ!|'  J  could 
progress.    A  little  more,  and  the  Pranhita  would 
be  shallower;  then  a  little  more  and  we  should 
approach  terra  firma.    I  grew  cheerful.    I  said 
to  myself,  "Buck  up,  old  man!     The  worst  is 
over." 

But  what  was  this?    Swarms  of  flies  had  tor- 
mented our  bullocks  since  the  start,  yet  we  had 
thought  little  of  it,  though  the  bullocks  had,  and 
at  last  one  of  mine  found  a  nice,  simple,  co- 
venient  way  to  escape  flies — by  lying  dowr> 
and  sank  into  the  stream,  with  only  his 
above  water.    Round  swung  my  cart,  inst 
hit  by  a  floating  log  and  over  it  tilted  p- 
upset,  and  I  knew  that  present1 
driver,  missionary  and  all  wo- 
the  crocodiles. 


VI:    BalUa  and  the  Bandit 


VI 

Ballia  and  the  Bandit 

f  I  iHE  finest  thriller  at  the  movies  is  often 
JL  an  affair  of  life  and  death  at  the  brink 
of  a  yawning  chasm,  but  the  effect  is  a  good 
deal  softened  by  your  knowledge  that,  when 
the  awful  climax  comes  and  the  victim  is  about 
to  be  flung  headlong  into  the  abyss,  they  -sub- 
stitute a  dummy. 

There  was  no  dummy  in  Ballia's  case ;  instead 
there  was  a  live  Hindu  boy.  Seven  years  and 
more  I  had  known  him,  and  this  is  how  we  first 
got  acquainted.  Perhaps  you  remember  a  story 
of  mine  about  helping  to  liberate  a  thousand  cap- 
tive Hindus  who  were  toiling  in  misery  and  with- 
out pay  at  a  manganese  mine.  We  settled  them 
on  a  big  industrial  farm,  you  recall,  and  among 
them  was  Ballia,  a  plucky  little  fellow  who  had 
unlimited  good  spirits  in  him  despite  privation 
and  abuse.  He  caught  my  attention  at  the  very 

123 


124  JUNGLE  TALES 

outset.  "Look,  sahib"  he  said,  proudly,  "I've 
had  the  smallpox,"  and,  sure  enough,  his  jolly 
brown  face  was  all  pock-marked.  If  there  is 
anything  certain  to  win  a  missionary's  sympathy, 
it  is  that ;  for,  as  a  general  rule,  it  represents  one 
of  the  most  tragical  institutions  of  heathenism — 
namely,  the  worship  of  the  smallpox  goddess, 
Devi. 

I  could  readily  guess  how  Ballia  had  caught 
the  smallpox.  It  is  common  in  India — as  com- 
mon, almost,  as  measles  and  the  toothache  are 
here — but  heathenism  makes  the  natives  do  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  help  the  disease  spread. 
It  is  a  "sacred"  disease — an  affliction  to  be  sought 
after — and  the  ugly  marks  it  leaves  are  looked 
upon  as  a  badge  of  honor.  In  Kamtee  there  is 
a  temple  where  the  smallpox  goddess  has  an 
image,  in  front  of  which  you  •will  see  tiny  vessels 
filled  with  smallpox  scales  brought  there  as  offer- 
ings to  Devi.  While  I  was  serving  as  a  chap- 
lain of  the  British  army  ( I  am  as  good  an  Ameri- 
can as  you  are,  but  every  Sunday  morning  I  went 
and  talked  to  the  British  Tommies)  I  used  to 
ride  past  that  temple,  and  see  the  smallpox  suf- 
ferers worshipping  there,  and  swarms  of  flies 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT    125 

buzzing  around  them,  and  blackening  the  whole 
front  of  the  filthy  old  edifice.  And 'whenever 
smallpox  breaks  out  in  a  Hindu  village,  a  grand 
feast  is  prepared,  and  all  the  neighbors  are  en- 
thusiastically invited  in — to  catch  the  disease  if 
they  can.  It  was  after  a  party  of  that  sort  that 
Ballia  came  down  with  it,  much  to  .his  family's 
delight. 

I  pitied  the  boy  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
and,  the  more  he  boasted  of  his  pock-marked  face, 
the  deeper  my  sympathy  grew  and  the  stronger 
my  interest,  for  I  said  to  myself,  "When  this 
youngster  becomes  a  Christian  and  understands 
what  monstrous  idiocies  heathenism  prescribes 
and  enforces,  he  will  want  to  go  out  and  fight 
heathenism,  tooth  and  nail."  Wasn't  that  good 
logic?  Heathenism  had  disfigured  him.  It  had 
all  but  cost  him  his  life.  It  was  a  curse  and  an 
abomination.  When  Ballia  opened  his  eyes  to 
that  hideous  fact,  then,  without  fail,  there  would 
be  a  mighty  change  in  Ballia. 

I  had  not  long  to  wait.  After  a  few  days,  our 
thousand  ex-captives  bolted  Hinduism  in  a  body 
and  turned  Christian,  Ballia  along  with  them, 
and  he  began  to  realize  what  a  shocking  outrage 


126  JUNGLE  TALES 

he  had  been  subjected  to.  I  think  it  was  this, 
more  than  any  other  one  thing,  that  made  him 
want  to  be  a  missionary,  himself,  and  induced 
him  to  study  faithfully  in  the  school  we  opened 
at  our  industrial  farm.  But  Ballia  was  not  bril- 
liant— in  fact,  he  was  a  dull  boy,  rather,  and,  in- 
stead of  developing  the  qualities  that  make  a 
speaker,  seemed  destined  only  to  become  a  work- 
man. I  was  sorry.  I  had  expected  much  more 
of  him.  And  yet  a  Christian  workman  in  India 
may  exert  great  influence,  especially  if  he  has 
courage.  We  were  soon  to  learn  that  our  dull, 
plodding,  pock-marked  little  Ballia  had  courage 
in  abundance. 

During  a  visit  at  the  big  farm  (I  used  to  run 
down  there  from  our  Methodist  mission  station 
in  Nagpur  pretty  frequently)  I  heard  that  a 
gigantic  outlaw — a  native  six  feet  five  and  re- 
nowned for  thievery  and  deeds  of  violence — had 
been  looting  our  storehouse.  One  evening  Ballia 
caught  him  at  it.  Aware  that  he  was  seen,  the 
wretch  sprang  at  Ballia,  nabbed  him  by  the 
throat,  threw  him  down,  choked  him  almost  into 
insensibility,  and  threatened  him  with  bloody 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     127 

murder  if  he  ever  dared  breathe  a  word  to  any- 
one. Poor  Ballia  crept  away  half  dead. 

As  soon  as  he  could  get  to  his  feet  and  walk, 
he  came  straight  to  me  with  the  story.  Not  only 
that;  he  accompanied  me  that  night  when  I 
called  at  the  nearest  police  station  and  turned  in 
a  complaint  against  the  bandit  who  had  almost 
taken  his  life. 

Not  long  afterwards  the  bandit  was  captured 
(it  took  several  men  to  arrest  him)  and  dragged 
before  the  judge  of  the  Tahsile  for  trial,  and 
among  the  witnesses  summoned  to  appear  against 
him  was  Ballia — indeed,  Ballia  was  the  star  wit- 
ness, for,  while  others  of  us  had  circumstantial 
evidence  to  offer,  he  alone  had  seen  the  marauder 
actually  committing  his  depredations. 

Ordinarily,  a  criminal  in  India  has  no  very 
overwhelming  dread  of  testimony  by  natives,  but 
when  the  native  is  a  Christian  the  thing  becomes 
serious,  for  then  a  judge  will  believe  him.  As 
soon  as  the  burly  giant  got  out  on  bail  (how  he 
secured  bail  I  never  knew,  yet  somehow  he  man- 
aged to)  his  first  care  was  to  hunt  up  Ballia. 
He  kicked  him,  beat  him,  and  choked  him,  try- 
ing to  make  him  promise  not  to  tell  the  court 


128  JUNGLE  TALES 

what  he  had  seen,  but  Ballia  kept  saying,  "I'm 
not  going  to  lie  for  you,"  and  stuck  it  out  to  the 
end,  and  when  -we  found  him  he  was  a  terribly 
mauled  boy,  bleeding  from  a  dozen  wounds. 

It  was  a  thoroughly  dramatic  scene  in  court 
that  trial — a  gigantic  brute  of  an  outlaw  in  the 
prisoner's  dock,  a  little,  pock-marked  boy  on  the 
witness  stand.  All  during  Ballia's  examination 
and  cross-examination,  the  infuriated  bandit 
glared  malice  and  ferocity  at  him,  as  much  as 
to  say,  "Kid,  you'll  pay  for  this  with  your  life" 
— which  was  literally  and  exactly  what  he  meant, 
and  if  he  meant  it  then  he  meant  it  still  more 
when  he  heard  his  sentence:  Six  years  in  the 
penitentiary.  Before  he  was  put  away  for  the 
six  long  years,  his  brother  came  to  Ballia  with  a 
message.  The  bandit,  according  to  the  message, 
had  sworn  a  great  oath  to  come  back,  when  his 
term  was  up,  and  kill  Ballia. 

The  boy  laughed.  Six  years  are  a  very  consid- 
erable time.  At  its  termination  Ballia  might  be 
hard  to  find,  and  the  criminal  dead  and  gone,  and 
the  danger  past  forever.  Besides,  in  six  years 
Ballia  would  have  got  well  on  toward  young  man- 


I  SHOUTED — "l,OOK  OUT,    MAN,    OR   YOU'RE    A   GONER! 
BUT   HE   PAID    NO  ATTENTION! 


THE   WRETCH   SPRANG   AT 
BALLIA. 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     129 

hood  and  could  perhaps  wallop  a  bandit  or  so, 
himself. 

After  the  affair  in  court,  he  went  back  to  his 
studies — with  renewed  energy  and  ambition,  as 
it  seemed  to  me — but  it  is  certain  that  he  had  a 
greatly  increased  influence,  for  the  other  boys 
appreciated  his  courage  and  admired  it.  At  his 
books,  however,  he  was  still  slow,  and  we  decided 
at  last  that  further  study  on  Ballia's  part  would 
be  time  wasted.  Better  put  him  to  work. 

So  Ballia  came  to  Nagpur  and  took  a  job  as 
driver  of  the  mission  cart.  It  was  a  humble  oc- 
cupation, in  a  way,  but  consider.  Out  went  that 
cart  through  jungles  alive  with  wild  beasts. 
Only  a  brave  fellow  like  Ballia  could  be  trusted 
to  drive  it.  Then,  too,  driving  the  cart  kept  Bal- 
lia in  contact  with  the  natives  and  if  he  lacked 
the  genius  to  address  crowds  and  win  them  away 
from  heathenism,  he  could  tackle  the  natives  one 
by  one,  and  did — frequently  with  magnificent  re- 
sult. 

The  long  six  years  went  by,  and  we  had  almost 
forgotten  about  the  imprisoned  bandit  when  I  set 
out  one  day  for  our  industrial  farm,  taking  along 
Ballia  as  driver.  It  is  true  that  we  spoke  of  the 


130  JUNGLE  TALES 

big  convict,  but  our  remarks  were  jocose  now,  as 
we  had  ceased  to  have  any  real  dread  of  him, 
and  neither  Ballia  nor  I  could  recall  the  exact 
date  of  his  incarceration.  It  never  occurred  to 
us  that,  as  a  matter  of  grim  and  ugly  fact,  the 
sixth  anniversary  of  that  date  was  close  at  hand. 
Nor  did  anyone  at  the  farm  seem  to  know  or  care. 
Interest  centered,  not  in  the  gigantic  criminal 
soon  to  be  let  loose,  but  in  another  marauder  al- 
ready at  large — an  unusually  annoying  leopard 
that  had  taken  up  headquarters  on  an  island  in 
the  river  just  below  Taranpur. 

You  don't  see  the  connection  between  all 
this  and  the  movie  thriller  I  spoke  of  at  the  be- 
ginning? Of  course  you  don't,  and  no  more  did 
I,  or  I  should  not  have  set  forth  alone  for  a  shot 
at  that  leopard,  a  day  or  two  later,  and  left  Bal- 
lia to  take  care  of  himself  as  best  he  could.  How 
desperately  he  needed  a  bodyguard,  armed  to 
the  teeth,  I  little  realized,  for  no  one  in  the  neigh- 
borhood was  aware  that  the  giant  bandit  had  re- 
gained his  liberty  and,  with  murder  in  his  heart, 
even  now  roamed  the  jungle  in  search  of  a  pock- 
marked Hindu  lad. 

How  gaily  I  started  out  that  morning!    I  love 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     131 

a  leopard  hunt  as  dearly  as  I  hate  a  leopard  and, 
while  making  my  way  toward  the  island,  I  re- 
called with  considerable  pride  some  shots  I  had 
taken  at  wild  creatures  of  that  breed.  Not  many 
weeks  before,  I  was  touring  the  jungle  in  our 
mission  cart,  and  quite  a  rabble  of  natives  tagged 
behind  for  sake  of  the  protection  my  rifle  af- 
forded. There  was  several  young  mothers  in  the 
crowd,  cringing  and  shuddering  as  they  clutched 
their  babies  tight,  well  knowing  that  at  any  mo- 
ment some  beast  in  quest  of  a  toothsome  morsel 
might  spring  upon  them  before  I  could  get  a 
chance  to  fire.  Suddenly  from  the  lips  of  a 
tawny,  lithe  woman  with  a  babe  at  her  breast 
came  a  shriek  of  "Dekho,  sahib!  Ek  moti  beebut 
hai!" — "Look,  master!  There  is  a  great  leop- 
ard!" I  looked,  and  yonder  in  the  road  behind 
us  stood  the  spotted  beauty,  head  up,  listening 
hungrily  to  an  infant's  wails.  A  Mohammedan 
in  the  crowd  said,  "Sir,  he  has  been  following  us 
all  'the  afternoon ;  I  meant  to  tell  you  of  it." 
How  coolly  they  take  such  things! 

I  ordered  my  men  to  go  on  ahead  while  I 
stopped  and  hid  in  the  tiger  grass  beside  the  road 
waiting  for  a  shot.  They  made  a  great  fuss  and 


132  JUNGLE  TALES 

begged  me  not  to  run  such  risks,  but,  as  I  in- 
sisted, they  went  on.  Instead  of  mere  tiger 
grass,  I  found  a  bush  twenty  feet  from  the  road 
and  under  that  bush  I  hid,  face  down. 

Carefully  I  figured  the  distance  and  the  leop- 
ard's probable  pace  and  the  minutes  as  they 
passed,  and  when  I  thought  the  beast  must  be 
directly  in  front  of  me  I  raised  my  head.  Capi- 
tal! There  he  was,  slowly  walking  past,  only  a 
step  or  two  beyond  the  place  where  I  had  ex- 
pected him  to  be.  A  true  shot  right  into  his  shoul- 
der, and  all  was  over,  as  the  soft,  flat  bullet  mush- 
roomed out,  and,  smashing  the  bone,  pierced  the 
heart.  Wild  and  hilarious,  then,  was  the  joy  of 
the  crowd.  They  came  rushing  back  and  formed 
a  ring  around  their  fallen  foe,  and  leaped  and 
danced,  and  offered  the  dead  beast  all  manner  of 
indignities,  while  the  mothers  fondly  kissed  their 
babes  and  thanked  me  for  protecting  them. 

This,  of  course,  was  a  pleasant  thing  to  remem- 
ber, but  not  all  my  affairs  with  leopards  had 
ended  as  satisfactorily,  and  there  was  one  in  par- 
ticular that  still  rankled.  I  was  showing  some 
lantern  pictures  to  a  crowd  of  natives  in  a  jungle 
village  one  night  and  had  stretched  the  screen 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT    133 

between  two  trees  right  next  the  wild  jungle  it- 
self. The  people  were  seated  on  the  grass  and, 
judging  by  their  enthusiastic  ejaculations  of 
"Are  bapre"  they  were  enjoying  the  show  enor- 
mously. After  I  had  exhibited  all  my  American 
views,  I  tried  them  with  a  few  animal  pictures, 
and  when  I  displayed  a  photograph  of  a  fine 
spotted  beast,  the  people  shouted  appreciatively, 
ffDekho}  beebut  hair — "See!  It's  a  leopard." 
I  left  it  on  for  several  minutes,  as  they  seemed 
to  like  it,  and  behold!  right  around  the  corner 
of  the  screen  walked  a  live  leopard  and  stood 
gazing  at  the  picture.  Evidently  he  had  seen  it 
from  the  jungle  side,  as  it  shone  through,  and 
had  mistaken  it  for  one  of  his  kind  and  come  to 
investigate.  With  a  mighty  yell,  the  men  tum- 
bled over  one  another  in  their  haste  to  get  away, 
while  the  leopard,  as  much  surprised  as  they, 
slunk  off  into  the  jungle  and  vanished  before 
I  could  run  six  steps  toward  our  carts  for  my 
rifle.  Too  bad!  I  registered  a  vow  then  and 
there  that  the  next  leopard  to  cross  my  path 
should  not  escape  me  so  easily. 

Besides,  I  have  a  personal  rancor  against  leop- 
ards, not  without  good  reason.    One  sizzling  hot 


134  JUNGLE  TALES 

night,  while  I  was  away,  my  wife  and  babies  were 
sleeping  out  under  strong  nets,  and,  along  about 
midnight,  Mrs.  Musser  awoke  with  a  feeling  of 
insecurity,  and  sat  up  in  her  cot,  and  there,  sniff- 
ing close  to  the  babies'  bed,  stood  a  big  leopard 
in  the  moonlight.  She  shouted  and  clapped  her 
hands,  and  the  brute  slipped  away  down  a  near- 
by ravine,  but  I  protest  that  this  sort  of  thing  is 
too  serious  by  far. 

I  had  it  in  for  leopards  ever  after,  and  you  will 
easily  enough  understand  my  mood  as  I  set  out 
for  the  island  just  below  Taranpur,  quite  un- 
mindful of  Ballia,  who  remained  behind.  I  came 
to  a  deep  pool,  out  of  which  jutted  big  rocks, 
where  huge  crocodiles  lay  basking  in  the  sun- 
shine. Upstream  a  little  way  there  was  a  foam- 
ing cataract. 

Above  the  cataract,  I  found  that  there  was  an 
island  in  the  stream — as  nearly  as  I  could  judge, 
the  very  island  where,  according  to  report,  the 
leopard  had  established  himself.  On  the  farther 
side  of  the  island,  the  current  ran  swift  and  deep, 
frothing  at  the  foot  of  a  tall  and  almost  per- 
pendicular cliff.  On  the  side  toward  me,  it  was 
swift  but  shallow,  and  a  man  could  cross  over. 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     135 

I  crossed.  Warily  I  prowled  the  forest  that 
covered  the  island,  searching,  as  I  went,  for  evi- 
dences that  the  leopard  had  been  there  and  little 
recking  that  I  was  soon  to  face  a  human  beast 
of  prey  far  more  cruel  than  any  leopard.  But 
look!  Who  and  what  was  that — yonder  at  the 
brink  of  the  cliff,  across  the  further  branch  of 
stream?  A  man — a  man  of  unusual  size — and 
staggering! 

Through  the  veil  of  tropical  foliage  along  the 
cliff,  I  saw  him  stagger,  but  I  failed  to  recognize 
that  he  carried  a  heavy  burden.  I  thought  he 
must  be  drunk. 

It  was  by  no  means  an  absurd  conjecture. 
Only  a  short  while  before,  I  had  seen  what  a 
monstrous  curse  drink  is  in  India.  Away  down 
in  the  jungles,  six  days'  journey  from  the  nearest 
railway  station,  we  were  traveling  along  the 
palm-shaded  road.  You  have  seen  palms  in  hot- 
houses and  botanical  gardens;  here  they  grow 
wild,  some  as  tall  as  a  house,  some  barely  a  foot 
high,  while  the  most  beautiful  rose  twenty  feet 
from  the  ground  and  had  a  leaf  spread  twenty 
feet  across,  and  on  all  sides  the  clusters  of  coco- 
nuts hung  with  their  brown  hulls,  three-cornered, 


136  JUNGLE  TALES 

just  below  the  great  central  bud,  the  living  flower 
of  the  tree.  As  we  came  to  a  field  of  these  splen- 
did trees,  all  planted  in  rows  or  groups,  I  saw 
a  village  in  the  middle  of  the  grove — twenty  mud 
houses,  full  of  holes,  their  roofs  covered  with 
grass,  dry  and  yellow.  Not  a  man,  woman,  or 
child  was  to  be  seen.  I  said  to  our  guide,  "Is 
this  a  deserted  village?"  He  answered,  "No 
sahib;  it's  a  toddy  town."  We  walked  through 
it.  The  trees  all  had  tiny  bamboo  ladders  tied 
to  their  trunks  with  fiber  rope,  and  at  the  top  of 
each  coconut  palm  there  was  a  great  gash  cut, 
and  into  this  gash  was  thrust  a  bamboo  drain 
pipe,  and  at  the  end  of  it  a  pot  was  tied  to  catch 
the  sap.  From  that  sap  the  natives  made  a  dia- 
bolically intoxicating  drink. 

In  the  first  house  I  entered  lay  a  man,  his  wife, 
and  three  children  aged  nine  and  ten  and  a  baby 
two  years  old,  all  sodden  drunk.  I  shook  the 
man,  but  his  head  wagged  to  and  fro,  and  he 
never  even  opened  his  eyes.  I  picked  up  the  baby. 
It  was  impossible  to  awaken  it,  and  the  poor 
little  creature's  breath  smelt  strong  of  toddy. 
The  other  children  lay  like  dead  in  a  heap  of 
filthy  rags. 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     137 

From  house  to  house  I  went,  trying  to  find 
someone  awake,  but  all  were  drunk  and  helpless. 
Sometimes  an  old  man  and  an  old  woman  were 
the  sole  occupants  of  a  dirty  hovel;  sometimes  I 
found  only  a  man  and  a  dog,  and  always  the  huts 
were  filthy  beyond  words,  for  the  drunken  stu- 
por lasts  for  months — as  soon  as  a  native  comes 
back  to  semi-consciousness  he  drinks  again  and 
lies  down.  The  contrast  between  the  beautiful 
palms  and  the  squalor  and  degradation  in  the  vil- 
lage beneath  them  seemed  like  a  spoken  protest 
against  the  desecration  of  a  lovely  spot  "where 
every  prospect  pleases  and  only  man  is  vile." 

Remembering  the  experience  so  vividly,  I  nat- 
urally thought  first  of  drunkenness  when  I  saw 
the  huge  fellow  on  the  cliff  stagger  toward  its  very 
brink.  A  moment  more  and  he  might  lose  his 
footing  completely,  fall  into  the  stream  below, 
and  be  swept  over  the  cataract  into  the  crocodile 
pool,  where  death  was  certain. 

I  shouted  in  Telegu,  "Look  out,  man,  or  you're 
a  goner!"  but  he  paid  no  attention — he  was  too 
drunk,  I  concluded. 

There  are  times  when  it  comes  in  handy  to  be 
a  crack  shot  with  a  rifle,  as  some  poor  fellow's 


138  JUNGLE  TALES 

life  may  depend  on  your  skill.  One  evening  a 
friend  of  mine,  an  engineer,  was  sitting  out  on 
my  piazza,  and  a  black  panther  sneaked  up  in 
the  dark,  grabbed  him  before  he  could  wink,  and 
made  off  with  him  into  the  pitchy  darkness.  I 
dashed  to  the  rescue.  There  was  a  scuffle.  I 
could  hear  it.  Presently,  the  man,  with  the  beast 
on  top  of  him,  crawled  into  a  streak  of  light  from 
the  door  I  had  left  open  as  I  ran  out.  I  raised 
my  rifle,  and,  with  my  heart  in  my  mouth  and  my 
blood  running  cold,  let  drive.  Hurrah!  The 
bullet  missed  the  man  and  killed  the  panther. 
If  I  could  trust  my  aim  in  a  crisis  like  that,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  could  trust  it  now.  Shouts 
failed  to  stop  the  big  Hindu  on  the  cliff,  but  I 
had  a  notion  that  bullets  would  succeed,  as  even 
a  drunken  man  will  respect  bullets,  and  reasoned 
that  anybody  drunk  enough  to  stagger  in  that 
style  would  be  too  stupid  to  see  that  the  shots 
were  mere  warnings. 

I  realized,  of  course,  that  I  ran  awful  risks  of 
hitting  him,  but  consider;  he  had  to  be  stopped 
— otherwise  he  was  practically  doomed.  The 
first  shot  went  over  his  head,  as  I  intended  it  to. 
He  must  have  heard  it  sing.  Yet  he  came  on, 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT     139 

lurching  and  reeling,  just  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened. I  gave  him  another,  a  couple  of  yards  to 
one  side  of  him,  and  saw  it  kick  up  the  dirt.  Still 
he  came  on.  The  third  shot,  hitting  closer  than 
I  intended  it  to,  struck  directly  before  his  feet. 
At  that,  he  dropped  his  burden  on  the  ground, 
straightened  up  to  a  gigantic  height,  and,  with 
a  yell  of  hideous  rage,  turned  and  fled — not  stag- 
gering, either,  and  I  saw  in  a  flash  that  he  had 
been  sober  all  along.  No  amount  of  scare  could 
bring  a  man  out  of  crazy  intoxication  as  quickly 
as  that. 

There  on  the  ground  at  the  top  of  the  cliff  lay 
the  burden  he  had  dropped — a  queer  sort  of  bur- 
den about  six  feet  long  and  enclosed  in  a  coarse 
sack.  I  gazed  at  it  intently,  trying  to  guess  what 
it  was,  and  after  a  moment  or  two  I  saw  it  move, 
and  then  for  the  first  time  I  understood  what 
the  whole  thing  meant. 

About  two  hundred  yards  upstream  from 
where  I  stood,  there  was  a  shallow  place  where, 
despite  the  rapids  foaming  over  loose  rocks  and 
threatening  to  carry  you  over  the  cataract,  it 
seemed  possible  to  get  across.  I  chanced  it. 
Twice  I  slipped  and  fell  in,  and  oh,  the  relief 


140  JUNGLE  TALES 

when  I  reached  the  opposite  bank  and  found  a 
gully  through  which  I  could  clamber  up  to  the 
top.  Dripping,  breathless,  and  horror-stricken, 
I  ran  along  the  cliff  to  the  spot  where  our  bandit 
had  dropped  his  burden. 

It  was  not  moving  now.  No  sound  came  from 
it.  As  I  bent  down  to  rip  open  the  sack,  I 
thought,  "Too  late!  I've  saved  the  big  outlaw, 
but  not  his  victim." 

Yet  see!  When  I  slashed  the  sack  with  my 
hunting  knife,  there  was  the  pock-marked  face 
of  a  Hindu  lad,  and,  while  he  was  unable  to 
speak,  as  his  assailant  had  gagged  him,  his  eye- 
lids quivered  and  I  knew  he  was  alive. 

It  was  quite  a  job  getting  him  free.  After 
beating  him  horribly,  the  giant  had  bound  him 
hand  and  foot  and  trussed  him  up  like  a  fowl,  in 
which  condition  Ballia  was  to  have  gone  over  the 
cliff — movie  style,  only  more  so — with  a  water- 
fall waiting  him  and,  after  that,  the  crocodiles. 
"Some  scenario" — as  movie  goers  say;  let  the 
producers  beat  it  if  they  can. 

The  outlaw's  subsequent  career  was  a  brief 
one — hideous  while  it  lasted,  though  soon  over — 
but  Ballia's  had  hardly  more  than  begun.  I  said, 


BALLIA  AND  THE  BANDIT    141 

"Ballia,  I  think  this  escape  means  that  you  were 
intended  for  great  things.  You're  no  spell- 
binder, I  realize ;  you  can't  sway  a  crowd ;  but  you 
can  drag  Hindus  out  of  Hinduism  one  at  a  time 
with  bigger  results  than  ever  before.  Go  to  it!" 
He  did — and  made  good. 


THE  END 


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